wow...yea anecdotal evidence is definitely "proof" of the existence of a god.

This guy can't even talk correctly, do you think we're supposed to trust his ability to reason when he can't even master his native tongue?

Option a) guy hallucinates/dreams because of severe pain
Option b) buncha magic shit happens that is untestable, unverifiable, nonsensical

Hmmm....

let's get this to the top of the heap

*QUALITY!!!

hahaha

Boosting this quality contribution up in the Hot Listing - declared quality by rottenseed.

Couldn't finish watching this.

I don't know what any of the other Atheists on the sift have done to prepare themselves, but after essentially becoming an Atheist, the first thing I did was come to terms with my own mortality.
It scared the hell out of me at first, but as the days progressed I cam to accept the inevitable truth that awaits me. I'm prepared to die now, I live my life knowing that this is the only one I'll ever get.

This guy though.. I doubt he'd really ever been a true Atheist, if he isn't just acting now.

And.. what was wrong with him in the first place? Why did he go to the hospital? Did he have anything actually wrong with him or just the worst case of gas ever. How did he recover?

Honestly, what this man just described to me was an intense dream, which his subconscious likely brought on to ease his own mind because he was having a crisis of mortality.

Sorry, this proves absolutely nothing.

Thanks for the quality. SO so far we have an argument from ineloquence, an argument from inebriation, and an argument from i didnt watch the whole video. Compelling.

>> ^ponceleon:
Option a) guy hallucinates/dreams because of severe pain
Option b) buncha magic shit happens that is untestable, unverifiable, nonsensical
Hmmm....


c) it really happened, is verifiable..every Christian in the world has testimony that verifies this testimony

While I don't doubt the powerful experience this man had, his interpretation, or anyone else's interpretation, that this is proof of god (especially one specific god, like the Christian god), is a huge leap of illogic.

My real question is, why don't religious people understand that this doesn't prove anything?

Your personal epiphany is in no way credible evidence to anyone living outside of your brain. Your personal epiphany is in no way "verifiable".

Also, there are plenty of scientific explanations for the "Out of Body Experience" described.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_death_experience>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^ponceleon:
Option a) guy hallucinates/dreams because of severe pain
Option b) buncha magic shit happens that is untestable, unverifiable, nonsensical
Hmmm....

c) it really happened, is verifiable..every Christian in the world has testimony that verifies this testimony

>> ^KnivesOut:
Your personal epiphany is in no way credible evidence to anyone living outside of your brain.
Your personal epiphany is in no way "verifiable".>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^ponceleon:
Option a) guy hallucinates/dreams because of severe pain
Option b) buncha magic shit happens that is untestable, unverifiable, nonsensical
Hmmm....

c) it really happened, is verifiable..every Christian in the world has testimony that verifies this testimony



It's not really just personal..or unusual. 80 percent of the world believes in a Creator..33 percent believes in the judeo-christian God. This experience is instantly understandable to anyone who has experienced anything spiritual, what so ever. This bastion of unbelief here is what is unusual. It's also confirmed by the bible and other historical evidence. Yet, I'll let the man speak for himself. If this doesn't open your mind a little, I doubt anything I say will..

Oh, well that seals it air-tight then. Your magic book told you.

CASE CLOSED.

Because they want it to prove something... plan and simple. You HAVE to want it to... because empirically it proves absolutely nothing. To accept this mans experience as anything beyond this mans experience requires a personal desire for it to mean something beyond it being HIS experience. This is presented as evidence because if they don't present and support it as such there is literally NOTHING else to present...

You gotta REALLY want it...

>> ^offsetSammy:

While I don't doubt the powerful experience this man had, his interpretation, or anyone else's interpretation, that this is proof of god (especially one specific god, like the Christian god), is a huge leap of illogic.
My real question is, why don't religious people understand that this doesn't prove anything?

WOW... his experience is so unique and special, it MUST be real. /sarcasm

What a load of shit...

hehe, he said "idear"

I'll keep this as eloquent as possible, im sober, and i watched the vid in its entirety. (ineloquent, inebriated, didnt watch full vid, check, check, and check) that being said:

an out of body experience and hearing voices is not in any imaginable way "proof" of anything, at least not in the scientific sense.

a persons individual religious experiences and/or salvation testimonies are a deeply personal thing.....emphasis on personal.

I, myself, am a man of faith, a christian, whatever you wanna call me. Having said that, i would hope that would illustrate where my biases are and im still gonna tell you that this isnt "proof" of anything except this man had a significant, personal religious encounter/experience

Please note, for those of you who failed to understand the title..it's not meant to indicate this is proof..it is simplying stating what this mans testimony is, whom used to be an atheist

here's the atheist's Pastor's website:
http://www.howardstorm.com/Howard_Storm.html

There are no atheists in foxholes - meaning that in the face of death most people are all of a sudden spiritual.

what foolish neanderthals are we to interpret "god does exist" as a definitive statement of proof. i would like to apologize on behalf of me and the rest of the cave dwelling idiots here for insulting your mastery of the language. please dont whip us

warning, morphine may be a life altering experience

Well... I guess the other 20%, should give up their "research" and live in fear for their remaining days while they ponder an eternity in hell. It's only logical right?

I forgot which texts are a "historically accurate" depiction of "hell" and which were just written off as old fairy tales. I need to know what to expect.

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^KnivesOut:
Your personal epiphany is in no way credible evidence to anyone living outside of your brain.
Your personal epiphany is in no way "verifiable".>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^ponceleon:
Option a) guy hallucinates/dreams because of severe pain
Option b) buncha magic shit happens that is untestable, unverifiable, nonsensical
Hmmm....

c) it really happened, is verifiable..every Christian in the world has testimony that verifies this testimony


It's not really just personal..or unusual. 80 percent of the world believes in a Creator..33 percent believes in the judeo-christian God. This experience is instantly understandable to anyone who has experienced anything spiritual, what so ever. This bastion of unbelief here is what is unusual. It's also confirmed by the bible and other historical evidence. Yet, I'll let the man speak for himself. If this doesn't open your mind a little, I doubt anything I say will..

dimethyltryptamine is a hell of a drug.

@shinyblurry
probability, and a study of history indicates that it is much more likely that we create gods in our image, rather than gods creating us in theirs. The is natural result of an egocentric species, which creates projections of the self and imbues those projections with it's own valued qualities. Notice how, throughout history, our gods mirror ourselves, even changing in quality as society dictates.
Or we can go with the notion that we "know" the all-powerful and omnipitent...which is a mastabatory exercise in extreme arrogance.
my friend, there is a rather important disconnect between those who profess to "know" and those that profess to have no knowledge about what cannot be known. Atheism is not a belief that you are wrong and that your holy book is trash, it is instead a lack of belief, or lack of certainty in what is unknown and cannot be experienced except through death.
i was raised catholic. leaving was not a choice in what i believed, it was an acceptance of the unknown.

>> ^jan:
warning, morphine may be a life altering experience


He said in the video they hadn't given him anything yet. Did you take anything?

>> ^criticalthud:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry
probability, and a study of history indicates that it is much more likely that we create gods in our image, rather than gods creating us in theirs. The is natural result of an egocentric species, which creates projections of the self and imbues those projections with it's own valued qualities. Notice how, throughout history, our gods mirror ourselves, even changing in quality as society dictates.
Or we can go with the notion that we "know" the all-powerful and omnipitent...which is a mastabatory exercise in extreme arrogance.
my friend, there is a rather important disconnect between those who profess to "know" and those that profess to have no knowledge about what cannot be known. Atheism is not a belief that you are wrong and that your holy book is trash, it is instead a lack of belief, or lack of certainty in what is unknown and cannot be experienced except through death.
i was raised catholic. leaving was not a choice in what i believed, it was an acceptance of the unknown.


Actually, atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist. Look it up in a dictionary sometime. A lack of belief, ie, you don't know, would be agnosticism. An atheist is saying he does know there isn't a God, which is a leap of faith, considering there is no evidence to the contrary.

Personally, I think it takes more faith to be an atheist. If you ever feel like challenging your beliefs, which is what anyone who is seeking the truth should do, check out:

http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615

What I've taken from this is, after I pass on I'm going to meet a bunch of people(?) who start off acting really nice, but then turn into complete a-holes.

..so pretty much.. RL all over again.

Great.

>> ^criticalthud:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry" title="member since January 21st, 2011" class="profilelink">shinyblurry
probability, and a study of history indicates that it is much more likely that we create gods in our image, rather than gods creating us in theirs. The is natural result of an egocentric species, which creates projections of the self and imbues those projections with it's own valued qualities. Notice how, throughout history, our gods mirror ourselves, even changing in quality as society dictates.
Or we can go with the notion that we "know" the all-powerful and omnipitent...which is a mastabatory exercise in extreme arrogance.
my friend, there is a rather important disconnect between those who profess to "know" and those that profess to have no knowledge about what cannot be known. Atheism is not a belief that you are wrong and that your holy book is trash, it is instead a lack of belief, or lack of certainty in what is unknown and cannot be experienced except through death.
i was raised catholic. leaving was not a choice in what i believed, it was an acceptance of the unknown.


that was..
well..
AWESOME.
people basing their experiences on their own subjective reality and limited understanding and then conflating this experience into a known variable.
in this mans case being "born again" into a judau-christian theosophy.
good for him.seems it has given him a new way to not only perceive his surroundings but to experience life in a new paradigm.
but his experience does not translate to actual wisdom nor understanding.
it just means he had a pivotal,life changing experience and one he is attempting to marry the unknown into something more tangible...and human.

what a powerful experience that must have been for him.
who are we to question how he manifests an out-of-body experience?
seems to me it has fundamentally changed who he is on a most base level and that is not a bad thing.
so what if he conflates that experience with chrstianity?
he is still better for it in the long run.
so..
good for him.

100% of the world used to think that it was flat and at the center of the universe...people are ignorant until taught otherwise>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^KnivesOut:
Your personal epiphany is in no way credible evidence to anyone living outside of your brain.
Your personal epiphany is in no way "verifiable".>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^ponceleon:
Option a) guy hallucinates/dreams because of severe pain
Option b) buncha magic shit happens that is untestable, unverifiable, nonsensical
Hmmm....

It's not really just personal..or unusual. 80 percent of the world believes in a Creator..33 percent believes in the judeo-christian God. This experience is instantly understandable to anyone who has experienced anything spiritual, what so ever. This bastion of unbelief here is what is unusual. It's also confirmed by the bible and other historical evidence. Yet, I'll let the man speak for himself. If this doesn't open your mind a little, I doubt anything I say will..

FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING COMMENT QUOTING BULLSHIT!

Whose dick do I have to suck to get this shit fixed?

>> ^rottenseed:

FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING COMMENT QUOTING BULLSHIT!
Whose dick do I have to suck to get this shit fixed?


cant say sucking mine would fix it, but youre more than welcome to try =P

Haha Rottenseed, I was going to respond with a response almost exactly the same as yours (the flat earth comment), but I gave up after having too many problems with trying to quote the damn post!

>> ^rottenseed:

FUCK THIS STUPID FUCKING COMMENT QUOTING BULLSHIT!
Whose dick do I have to suck to get this shit fixed?

This is a really nice and humble way of putting things. I think you're right on. Religious people seem to have this idea that atheists are arrogant know-it-alls. In fact it is quite the opposite. It is an acceptance of the unknown, a humility about how little knowledge we really have. On the other hand, claiming that your religious, human experiences, miniature in comparison to the enormity of the universe, give you the ultimate insight into who created it, is delusional and arrogant.

(this is not to say we should accept the unknown "sitting down", of course. We should always be trying to seek the answers to our most profound questions by using the tools of science.)

>> ^criticalthud
i was raised catholic. leaving was not a choice in what i believed, it was an acceptance of the unknown.

Why You So BLURRY???

@rottenseed

Truth is not a numbers game, that much is true. Either something is true, or it isn't. Yet, just because 100 percent of people have been wrong about something doesn't mean peoples personal testimony is irrelevent. Our legal system would collapse if that was the case.

Id like to interject with this...
http://videosift.com/video/Sam-Harris-on-the-Science-of-the-Brain-vs-Soul-Proposition

When I was pretty young I suffered a very bad eye injury. I remember being put on the hospital bed, and being told I was soon going to go to sleep. I also remember the bunch of "hospital people in masks" hovering directly over over me, and the blurryness of it due to my one injured eye. I was probably around 5 or 6 years old. I then had a very very vivid dream about the ride to the hospital, but the landscape wasn't quite right (there were no hills anywhere near where we lived).. and obviously I was already there.

My memory of it is practicaly crystal clear to this day due to just how razer sharp the dream was in how it felt and looked. It was honestly like I was hovering over the vehicle on the way to the hospital.

I attribute that dream to the anesthesia they gave me.

Think about it. My brain was wide awake, mildly panicking.. and it's being SHOVED into deep unconsciousness.. instead of being able to communicate on a conscious level it's active in the subconscious now.

>> ^offsetSammy:
This is a really nice and humble way of putting things. I think you're right on. Religious people seem to have this idea that atheists are arrogant know-it-alls. In fact it is quite the opposite. It is an acceptance of the unknown, a humility about how little knowledge we really have. On the other hand, claiming that your religious, human experiences, miniature in comparison to the enormity of the universe, give you the ultimate insight into who created it, is delusional and arrogant.
(this is not to say we should accept the unknown "sitting down", of course. We should always be trying to seek the answers to our most profound questions by using the tools of science.)
>> ^criticalthud
i was raised catholic. leaving was not a choice in what i believed, it was an acceptance of the unknown.



Yes, it's so humble to call the faithful delusional and arrogant. If you were truly humble you'd realize that for all its so-called progress humanity is still rubbing two sticks together, and what we call new is just old in different packaging.

>> ^shinyblurry:

@rottenseed
Truth is not a numbers game, that much is true. Either something is true, or it isn't. Yet, just because 100 percent of people have been wrong about something doesn't mean peoples personal testimony is irrelevent. Our legal system would collapse if that was the case.


People's testimony is irrelevant. When it comes to hearsay, testimony in a court of law is taken with a grain of salt. Furthermore, our judicial system has put many innocent people in jail and let many guilty people go. Our judicial system wouldn't be a good way to support proficiency of testimony.

Humans and in fact all animals capable of learning patterns of some kind, have a natural bent towards recognizing and in turn, attempting to discern patterns of cause and effect. "This happened because I did this" and so on. When events occur that we can't explain however, this instinct doesn't shut off. We want to know, we have an inborn *need* to know what caused this earthquake, this inexplicable illness, this strange mental phenomena. With no readily available explanation humans will invariably make up their own reason for it.
This in no way makes any of it real by any stretch of the imagination. Why is there so much religion and belief in a higher power? Because *surprise!* the human race didn't know or comprehend 99.9% of anything going on for the past several hundreds of thousands (or thousands if you believe in a god that is attempting to play practical jokes on us all), so we made our own reasons for it. Only relatively recently have we begun to truly understand anything at all about the greater universe, whether you contest six thousand or a hundred thousand years of human history. Only a few hundred years at best have we been able to seriously study and understand all of "this". Compared to the thousands of years before of attributing every little thing we couldn't grasp to deities of one form or another, it would be more surprising if there wasn't as much religion as there is right now.
Sheer numbers is not an argument for anything. Just an argument that because there are a lot of you, it somehow means your right. When a few people believe in something unprovable or highly unlikely, we call this mental illness. When many believe the same things, we call this religion.

I wish my name was on fire.

If someone professes to tell me that they have all the answers to the universe, based on their personal experience, I think it's fair to call them arrogant/delusional without being labeled as such myself.

And I never said anything about how much progress I think we've made as a species, other than saying I think we actually know very little. How is that being arrogant?

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> Yes, it's so humble to call the faithful delusional and arrogant. If you were truly humble you'd realize that for all its so-called progress humanity is still rubbing two sticks together, and what we call new is just old in different packaging.

I'm beginning to think that Shiny is a troll... just sayin.

Who said anything about being humble in calling the faithful delusional? It's hypocritical in the EXTREME to claim humility while at the same time claiming to have a personal phone line to all the answers to everything anyone could ever want for all eternity. All this from a 2000 year old book that was assembled by a committee and authored by men many times, decades after the events depicted had actually supposedly happened. Humble is admitting we know very little, not claiming we have all the answers.


Yes, it's so humble to call the faithful delusional and arrogant. If you were truly humble you'd realize that for all its so-called progress humanity is still rubbing two sticks together, and what we call new is just old in different packaging.
- shineyblurry

The faithful are delusional and arrogant. They refuse to not believe anymore in spite of the reality around them. Fingers in both ears going "lalalala".

>> ^ponceleon:

I'm beginning to think that Shiny is a troll... just sayin.


Yeah, I should have figured out it was Blankfist earlier.

>> ^ponceleon:
I'm beginning to think that Shiny is a troll... just sayin.


I have better things to do than waste my time arguing on the internet for fun, and it's not fun to argue. I would rather we could find something to agree on. The only reason I am here on the sift is to provide an alternate viewpoint to the vast and endless void of unbelief that is currently blanketing the community here. Yes, there are people who don't agree with your views out there. Amazing isn't it?

aw man, i only came here to see rottenseed sucking dick.
son, am disappoint.

He sounds like he had a bad dream in his semi-unconscious state.
I had Nightmares/terrors every night for the first half of my life.

These types of visions during sleep/unconscious are not uncommon - If fact everyone dream so I find this hard to attribute to a real God. I can however understand how a person can see dreams as something akin to interacting with the supernatural.

In my dreams Ive witnessed horrors beyond belief and immense spiritual awakenings - I've made connections with people I haven't seen in years. I've had dreams so real, I didn't know the difference between sleep and awake even once I was awake.

I do however understand that what ever I was experiencing was a manifestation of my mind sorting and placing facts during the active healing process that our bodies go through when we sleep.

And yes, some of those experiences, I'm still not sure whether they were real or not real, but using reason and reality, I'm able to overcome any sort of waking dilutions. Dilutions which religion uses to exploit and convince us of something miraculous.

>> ^shinyblurry:


I have better things to do than waste my time arguing on the internet for fun, and it's not fun to argue. I would rather we could find something to agree on. The only reason I am here on the sift is to provide an alternate viewpoint to the vast and endless void of unbelief that is currently blanketing the community here. Yes, there are people who don't agree with your views out there. Amazing isn't it?


Are you actually so deluded as to believe that we don't all deal with "people of faith" on a daily basis? The sort of nonsense that is this video, and the forced obliviousness that causes otherwise intelligent people to label it evidence, is the norm in the US, common in the civilized world, and often legally mandated in the rest of the world.

How about realizing that people choose, with full awareness of your "arguments" to consider your position either naive or stupid, and that we have a point.

You are the one who walked into our house, so don't get all butt hurt that your pompous rudeness is met with a resounding fuck off.

That's over here, mate.
>> ^berticus:

aw man, i only came here to see rottenseed sucking dick.
son, am disappoint.

I think this needs to be in my playlist for the discussion alone, but also as a prime example of how the brain can easily misfire. I once had a salvia trip where I was absolutely certain, and despondent, that I was trapped in an insignificant, utilitarian corner of reality as a kind of giant roller stamped down every moment of existence on top of me and then passed me by. When I came out of it I was emotionally drained and relieved. I certainly do not still believe that time and space is actually rolled out, and I certainly don't call my experience "testimony" for anything. This man has done nothing but misinterpret imagery from his own temporarily broken brain into something far more meaningful than it was, and then told everyone that his experience was true.

Do a lot of people come up with this same imagery when they have similar situations? Absolutely! When your culture is super-saturated with religious imagery (particular religion dependent on region and parenting, of course), then it's not a stretch to find it seep into one's subconscious mind and present itself in delusional visions during such extreme neurological events.

@dgandhi

Sorry to intrude on *your* house..but I thought this is a community. A community with a prevailing atheist viewpoint, but you're not all atheists are you? So, if you're saying the majority rules then I guess you'd be a hypocrite complaining about Christian influence in American culture.

You can call my beliefs nonsense all day long, but that isn't exactly compelling. Mostly the points I see being made here are laced with insults, profound ignorance, and a complete lack of intellectual curiosity. I would call that pointless, really.

And sorry that it's pompous to submit videos, which is the whole point of this site. You wouldn't mind what I did if it didn't disagree with your views. How about you feel free not to watch it? The closed-minded nastyness here is pretty notable. I mean we have 45 comments, and 300 views, but 3 votes. I even got a downvote. Clearly this video is interesting to people, yet it won't get many votes because of this closed-mindedness. The testimony here is emotional and powerful, and I know it will make people think..yet most of the comments here are just attacking comments I made rather than anything insightful about the video itself.

There's a whole list of good replies to your video, you seem to stick to the ones who are going to give you the most abrasive responses.

>> ^Sketch:
I think this needs to be in my playlist for the discussion alone, but also as a prime example of how the brain can easily misfire. I once had a salvia trip where I was absolutely certain, and despondent, that I was trapped in an insignificant, utilitarian corner of reality as a kind of giant roller stamped down every moment of existence on top of me and then passed me by. When I came out of it I was emotionally drained and relieved. I certainly do not still believe that time and space is actually rolled out, and I certainly don't call my experience "testimony" for anything. This man has done nothing but misinterpret imagery from his own temporarily broken brain into something far more meaningful than it was, and then told everyone that his experience was true.
Do a lot of people come up with this same imagery when they have similar situations? Absolutely! When your culture is super-saturated with religious imagery (particular religion dependent on region and parenting, of course), then it's not a stretch to find it seep into one's subconscious mind and present itself in delusional visions during such extreme neurological events.


I think there is probably a bit of difference between tripping out on drugs and thinking that the Universe is trying to destroy you and having an experience where God comes to you, heals you on every level to the extent that your life is profoundly changed, and then proceeds to review your entire life with you before sending you back to your body. He explains all of this with an uncommon clarity..doesn't seem like it was a fever dream to me.

An uncommon clarity, like in the same way Sketch described his trip? He's had plenty of time to review his story in how he's going to present it (the guy in the video). Who knows in what ways he's prepped the story in anticipation for this video.. he may have even been asked to by the people making the video for the sake of presentation.

blurry... People like to watch a good car accident. Doesn't mean they will enable one to happen, or think it's a good thing.

This choir here doesn't do with preaching.

>> ^Drax:
An uncommon clarity, like in the same way Sketch described his trip? He's had plenty of time to review his story in how he's going to present it (the guy in the video). Who knows in what ways he's prepped the story in anticipation for this video.. he may have even been asked to by the people making the video for the sake of presentation.


That seemed well rehearsed to you? He seemed very honest and direct about his experience, not like he was reading from some script in his mind. When it was too emotional for him, he didnt even want to tell us about some of it..and he had trouble describing other aspects..usually people don't shed genuine tears when they're telling something well practiced..it seemed to come from his heart and not his intellect.

man confirmation bias is a whorey bitch

All I said is he had time to prepare, think over in his mind how he would present it (maybe there was even multiple takes)... gather himself. We could do the same for Sketch's trip.. and if there was anything in his story that moved him, perhaps he too would break into tears. I'm just saying you're weighing how he conducts himself as some sort of proof that what he described actually happened. Sketch'es trip seemed 100% real to him while he was in it (Salvia can cause you to forget what your actual surroundings are), just like going into a deep dream can do as well.

I see a video that was produced by, I assume, a church.. they even pulled in some actors, etc.. of course he's going to present things clearly and with poise.

I'm simply pointing out that it is incredibly easy to fool, trick, damage, and poison your brain into thinking that things are real that are not. The brain is an amazing organ capable of many great things, but it is FAR from a perfect machine. Not only do many people do this on purpose for recreational purposes, but the brain does it on its own, in this case probably to protect him from some sort of shock while he collapses from his ailment. And that's not taking into account whatever the paramedics were sure to have given him. My experience was incredibly vivid and lucid to me at the time, despite the reality of it. You want there to be a difference, but I don't see it.
>> ^shinyblurry:


I think there is probably a bit of difference between tripping out on drugs and thinking that the Universe is trying to destroy you and having an experience where God comes to you, heals you on every level to the extent that your life is profoundly changed, and then proceeds to review your entire life with you before sending you back to your body. He explains all of this with an uncommon clarity..doesn't seem like it was a fever dream to me.

>> ^berticus:

man confirmation bias is a whorey bitch


i resemble that remark.

>> ^shinyblurry:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/dgandhi" title="member since March 22nd, 2007" class="profilelink">dgandhi
Sorry to intrude on your house..but I thought this is a community.


Yes a community which you seem to want to capitalize on to gain piety point, a community which you condescend to by saying things like "endless void of unbelief that is currently blanketing the community" as if we can just import nonsense into our world view to solve this supposed lack. You are of course welcome here, IF you learn to stop being an ass to those of us who are already here, something which should be easy if you can manage to see us as more than souls to be harvested.

>> ^shinyblurry:

You can call my beliefs nonsense all day long, but that isn't exactly compelling.


We don't have to "compel" ourselves to not believe that for which there is no evidence. If you have no interest in considering your claimed beliefs well enough to defend them, that's really not my problem, but it is similarly not compelling.

>> ^shinyblurry:

And sorry that it's pompous to submit videos, which is the whole point of this site.....yet most of the comments here are just attacking comments I made rather than anything insightful about the video itself.


Okay, how about leaving the cross at home, and deal with the fact that you are not being martyred, you are being criticized. Since the video does not actually contain anything insightful you really should not be surprised that people are talking about the comments, especially the ones where you implicitly ask us all to pretend that we don't disagree with you, and to ignore your condescending posturing so that you can continue to be a jerk with impunity.

Well, I'm convinced. Ten minutes of anecdotal evidence is all that is required to sway my feeble mind.

I don't have a problem with unbelievers, certainly not on a human level. I've been coming to this site since probably around 2007..I only joined the community recently because of the group-think going on around here regarding God, and decided to present an alternate viewpoint. I don't really think anyone is going to convert to Christianity because I posted a video, but I will at least try to expand someones awareness about God. And who said anything about being martryed? It's amusing how unbelievers will accuse you of a persecution complex when you make the slightest complaint..i think its pretty easy to see how I am being treated. and it's not like I didn't know what I was getting into. This is the internet so I am wearing my big boy pants. I really don't know what you're complaining about..sorry that you were forced to watch my video and read all the comments. You do know you don't have to do that, right?

Well, I don't know why we are arguing anyway. On the way back from NYC this weekend I saw at least 4 billboards that said the final judgement was on May 21st. Pretty sure those christians are absolutely sure it will happen, so that's basically all the proof I need!

>> ^shinyblurry:
I really don't know what you're complaining about..sorry that you were forced to watch my video and read all the comments. You do know you don't have to do that, right?


I'm complaining about you being an ass, I already said that a couple of times.

I'm not complaining about you posting a video, and I clearly have not argued that you are "forcing" me or anybody else to have a discussion about it. The point I am making, and that you keep providing more evidence for, is that in comments on and the discussion around this video, you have managed to consistently be a condescending ass.

Your redundant "you don't have to watch it" false apology is a prime example, I have not said you should not have posted it, I have only said that it is nonsense. That I should save myself the displeasure of your video is not what you really mean, you mean that you don't want to hear it. Since you have been lurking here for years you probably picked up on the fact that quality control involves critique, it's just that you are so used to special treatment for your theological views that you didn't consider what you were getting into.

If you want to have a theological discussion, bring it, but do your homework, don't bother with the old tropes like "atheism takes faith" or "only anti-theists are atheists", and certainly don't lead with nonsense that even you must know will be disregarded as the propaganda it is by anybody who does not already agree with you.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I really don't know what you're complaining about..sorry that you were forced to watch my video and read all the comments. You do know you don't have to do that, right?

I'm complaining about you being an ass, I already said that a couple of times.
I'm not complaining about you posting a video, and I clearly have not argued that you are "forcing" me or anybody else to have a discussion about it. The point I am making, and that you keep providing more evidence for, is that in comments on and the discussion around this video, you have managed to consistently be a condescending ass.
Your redundant "you don't have to watch it" false apology is a prime example, I have not said you should not have posted it, I have only said that it is nonsense. That I should save myself the displeasure of your video is not what you really mean, you mean that you don't want to hear it. Since you have been lurking here for years you probably picked up on the fact that quality control involves critique, it's just that you are so used to special treatment for your theological views that you didn't consider what you were getting into.
If you want to have a theological discussion, bring it, but do your homework, don't bother with the old tropes like "atheism takes faith" or "only anti-theists are atheists", and certainly don't lead with nonsense that even you must know will be disregarded as the propaganda it is by anybody who does not already agree with you.


You can make a federal case about my supposed attitude problem if you want. Are you aware of the fact that you're on the internet right now? Who on this site doesn't have an attitude problem anyway? Anyhow, since you keep complaining, I'll just say that if I offended you I am sorry. I didn't mean to offend you. If you do want to debate theology, I'm happy to take you up on it.

If I did have a problem with the things I'm hearing here, it's that they're boring and shallow. I've heard them all before, and argued them all before. For and against. I used to be agnostic and like most of you here, had no idea there was a spiritual reality. Like most of you, I considered it nonsense..then I woke up from my ignorance and found out that everything I knew (or thought I knew) was wrong. I don't really expect you to relate to that, since you have no basis of comparison, but I can tell you that there is a lot more going than is apparent to you. Anyhow, most of this is just sniping anyway, trying to provoke a reaction. Problem is, I just don't have an ego to burst about it. Is there anyone here who has actually read any philosophy? Becuase if so, some of you might realize that God is an idea deserving of serious philisophical consideration, a subject debated by some of the greatest minds this world has ever known. Is it *the* question in those circles. It would be laughable if you were to come to a real debate and say "well you don't have any evidence". And you do? Let's get real here..

>> ^sme4r:
here's the atheist's Pastor's website:
http://www.howardstorm.com/Howard_Storm.html
There are no atheists in foxholes - meaning that in the face of death most people are all of a sudden spiritual.


Christopher Hitchens is a good example of this...
oh, wait... no he isn't

its good to know I can lead a life full of sin, and will be given the opportunity like everyone else to shout out "Jesus" in fevered dreams and be saved

or wait, maybe not like everyone else, because that would sorta be a cop out

maybe this guy is just special... but i thought everyone was in "His" eyes...

well then maybe he works in mysterious ways, and this guy can't convey to you his experience, like the love Jesus felt for him as he carried him... and thats the proof... see?

no? but he wrote a book

no? but the universe is sooo complex, it needs a designer...

no? but everyone believes when they are in a fox hole

>> ^packo:
>> ^sme4r:
here's the atheist's Pastor's website:
http://www.howardstorm.com/Howard_Storm.html
There are no atheists in foxholes - meaning that in the face of death most people are all of a sudden spiritual.

Christopher Hitchens is a good example of this...
oh, wait... no he isn't
its good to know I can lead a life full of sin, and will be given the opportunity like everyone else to shout out "Jesus" in fevered dreams and be saved
or wait, maybe not like everyone else, because that would sorta be a cop out
maybe this guy is just special... but i thought everyone was in "His" eyes...
well then maybe he works in mysterious ways, and this guy can't convey to you his experience, like the love Jesus felt for him as he carried him... and thats the proof... see?
no? but he wrote a book
no? but the universe is sooo complex, it needs a designer...
no? but everyone believes when they are in a fox hole


Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.

The only reason any theist does anything regarded as good is because of their fear of God's Wrath. Without that fear, any and all theists fall into evil and depravity, because they have no reason to be otherwise.

Empathy is only for the pious. It is a gift from God that is instantly taken away when one stops fearing.

This is all true because I saw it on a flashing road work sign. Only God can change those.

>> ^shinyblurry:

@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/dgandhi" title="member since March 22nd, 2007" class="profilelink">dgandhi
Sorry to intrude on your house..but I thought this is a community. A community with a prevailing atheist viewpoint, but you're not all atheists are you? So, if you're saying the majority rules then I guess you'd be a hypocrite complaining about Christian influence in American culture.
You can call my beliefs nonsense all day long, but that isn't exactly compelling. Mostly the points I see being made here are laced with insults, profound ignorance, and a complete lack of intellectual curiosity. I would call that pointless, really.
And sorry that it's pompous to submit videos, which is the whole point of this site. You wouldn't mind what I did if it didn't disagree with your views. How about you feel free not to watch it? The closed-minded nastyness here is pretty notable. I mean we have 45 comments, and 300 views, but 3 votes. I even got a downvote. Clearly this video is interesting to people, yet it won't get many votes because of this closed-mindedness. The testimony here is emotional and powerful, and I know it will make people think..yet most of the comments here are just attacking comments I made rather than anything insightful about the video itself.


dude, you are either 1) intentionally confrontational, 2) a obnoxious blowhard who's overly aggressive in his quest to insist everyone think like you or believe the things you do, 3) a troll, or a combination of the three

ya youre video wont get any votes, not because most dont find it compelling enough to warrant so, but because we're all a bunch of closed minded fools. that sound about right to you?

dude, we already had this conversation, dude...and sure, it isnt compelling with now 500 views and 70 comments..that must be it

I smell a troll.

Couldn't make it through the whole video, but man, the comments sure are amusing.

Ultimately, this is a pretty tired discussion.

anyone with balls enough to post a video such as this on the sift deserves an upvote. troll or not, I hope i can help you on your way to losing that nasty red P of shame....

>> ^bleedmegood:
anyone with balls enough to post a video such as this on the sift deserves an upvote. troll or not, I hope i can help you on your way to losing that nasty red P of shame....


Thanks bleed I would like to leave the ghetto someday. Though if the sift had a room for all the P's to play spades in, it wouldn't be so bad.

**sigh**

I think that we should all be able to agree on the following...
- The human mind can become very easily confused.
- Vivid hallucinations are a well documented phenomenon.
- There are many things that can impact a persons perception; narcotics, a lack of oxygen, too much oxygen, lack of sleep, some bad pizza before bed, etc.
- Those that are in a fragile or compromised state of mind are more susceptible to certain "experiences".
- In times of stress the human mind can latch onto an idea and cling to that idea like a life raft.
- People can truly believe in what they experienced regardless of any contrary evidence.
- A person can pass a polygraph if they believe in the truth of their answers.
- Just because someone believes that they experienced something it doesn't make it so.

Why is it that if someone has an "experience" that is in any way associated with religion they are pushed forward by supporters of that religion as being validation of their beliefs but if someone has an "experience" that is associated with Elvis, Aliens, or Bigfoot they are deemed to be lunatics? How different is it really to suggest that you were visited by the omnipotent creator of the universe than it is to suggest that you were visited by an intelligent alien life form from a far off planet?

Those curtains are proof of something, but I can't figure out what.

Proof of trollmanship (or true religious obliviousness...): the Sift has an extensive catalog of arguments for god(s) in the religion channel. Admittedly, most of them are presented only to be utterly destroyed by reason and logic, but to suggest that sifters need to expand their awareness about God (which one?) is absurd...



@shinyblurry says: "I've been coming to this site since probably around 2007 [...] I will at least try to expand someones awareness about God.

For the Google-lazy, here's what shiny's tattoo-avatar refers to (Rom. 5:1-5 KJV):

1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

3 And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience;

4 And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

5 And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

More proof of trollmanship, along with shiny's username?

GUYS, GUYS

SERIOUSLY... GUYS

I WAS NOT CONVINCED BEFORE BUT I AM NOW, SERIOUSLY

GUYS...

THE AMERICAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM IS SHIT.

(Honestly though, 'God gave me a perforated stomach and now I luuurrrv heeeem!', yeah right.)

I'm not a troll, I am here to give testimony of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ knows you and loves you, and He will save you. Whatever is afflicting you, whatever burden you are carrying, if you ask for healing in His name He will come to you and He will heal you. Jesus Christ is Almighty God and can do anything. Pray for healing in His name, ask Him in your heart to come to you and heal your affliction, and He will do it. Pray to Jesus, ask to know Him in your heart, ask to have a relationship with Him, and He will remove your burdens. He says:

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"

Ask Him to show Himself to you, ask Him to reveal to you that He is Almighty God and He will do it! Pray to Him with all your heart and you will know He is the Lord!

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

I concur. All aboard the Upboat! Toot!>> ^bleedmegood:

anyone with balls enough to post a video such as this on the sift deserves an upvote. troll or not, I hope i can help you on your way to losing that nasty red P of shame....

*Quality conversation. and I hope @shinyblurry will lose his 'P'.

This video has already declared quality - ignoring quality request by geo321.

Thanks guys and you know this is a pretty quality conversation..I've been too heavy handed and thin skinned and im sorry..when I wake up I will address some of the more insightful replies I ignored because I was paying attention to the incindiary ones..

Just wondering Mr Shiny but if someone were to find personal testimony similar to this where it was Muhammed or Allah who "saved" someone, would you drop your cross and convert?

Yup. That sounds like a dream to me.

+5 respect points. If we can avoid the incendiary nonsense, I'll drop back by the convo after work and add my thoughts. I just wanted to quickly give kudos for your latest comment.
>> ^shinyblurry:

Thanks guys and you know this is a pretty quality conversation..I've been too heavy handed and thin skinned and im sorry..when I wake up I will address some of the more insightful replies I ignored because I was paying attention to the incindiary ones..

>> ^shinyblurry:


You might realize that God is an idea deserving of serious philisophical consideration, a subject debated by some of the greatest minds this world has ever known. Is it the question in those circles. It would be laughable if you were to come to a real debate and say "well you don't have any evidence". And you do? Let's get real here..


Okay lets start this Poe/Turing test:

To give God serious philosophical consideration, the word itself must have meaning, so please, while not tipping your hand, explain how we could identify this thing if we were to come upon it. If you want to claim that we can't come upon it, then please explain your definition of the term exists in such a way that you can make the claim "God does exist".

I've given up on trying to explain logic and critical thinking to those whose entire perception of reality is based on the irrational. It's just a waste of time.

>> ^shinyblurry:
Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.


You didn't resolve how God got there either. You just said he was eternal and you were happy to leave it at that. So why call Dawkins out for doing the same thing? And why should I believe you over him?

(Let's no forget to mention the fact that his idea was a suggestion and yours is what you're basing your whole life around.)

I'm not sure how folks are saying blurry is being rude... on reviewing the entire conversation I see only the usual "I know I'm right and I refuse to apply critical thinking to my beliefs because they do not require such" that any and all truly religious people project. It's no more rude than a (R) trying to tell a (D) that his fiscal policy is better. I welcome another viewpoint in here, even if it is in my opinion, based on nothing and has nothing truly real to say. Sadly this all reads as insulting, but only because of the privileged place the religious have placed their beliefs in the conversation in this country. As if to say anything about them at all is a grave insult to everything about the person.

All aside, welcome to the conversation and congratz on losing the P. Just keep in mind that questioning your beliefs here is NOT inherently insulting. Though I grant a few of the comments here have been intended as such.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I'm not a troll, I am here to give testimony of the Lord. The Lord Jesus Christ knows you and loves you, and He will save you. Whatever is afflicting you, whatever burden you are carrying, if you ask for healing in His name He will come to you and He will heal you. Jesus Christ is Almighty God and can do anything. Pray for healing in His name, ask Him in your heart to come to you and heal your affliction, and He will do it. Pray to Jesus, ask to know Him in your heart, ask to have a relationship with Him, and He will remove your burdens. He says:
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest"
Ask Him to show Himself to you, ask Him to reveal to you that He is Almighty God and He will do it! Pray to Him with all your heart and you will know He is the Lord!


The Poe is strong in this one!

Eureka! I think I had that dream!
Thanks for the epiphany, I didn't see it for the truth that it was but you've helped the fog to clear!
I now know that the aliens were communicating with my because it happened while I was in REM sleep and my mind couldn't have just made something like that up! I will henceforth go forward and preach in a new era of Alien/Human peace! ( )
>> ^Deadrisenmortal:

How different is it really to suggest that you were visited by the omnipotent creator of the universe than it is to suggest that you were visited by an intelligent alien life form from a far off planet?

The immediately prior comments to these have excellent questions and points and I'm looking forward to seeing the response. Here's another hypothetical scenario:

So, let's say I accept the premise of god and Jesus being here to save me. Being that god created everything and setup the entire premise of this universe, it follows that he's created the conditions which I need Jesus to save me from. So, god has created a universe and then added sentient people to it, but he also set things up so that if those sentient beings don't do what he wants, he'll torture them forever. If they do what he wants for some short amount of time, however, he'll let them worship him forever.

And keep in mind that within this scenario, he's not providing any direct presence or interaction with the sentient beings involved, but rather showing his presence through repeated anecdotes of unconfirmed and unexplained experiences claimed by followers that he has. So if someone is skeptical, they are wholly screwed and lose the game. And he's given these sentient beings the capacity for reasoning and skepticism, so many of them tend to naturally want explanations for things... But god wishes to remain unexplainable and inaccessible for whatever reason. The scenario is looking more and more like some kind of twisted game.

And somewhere along the line, god changed his mind and changed all the rules for the game. Somewhere along the line, he changed how to get to the super awesome fun worship land of heaven. He decided that his previous system wasn't cutting it, so he changed it. Good for him, but now people are even more confused and not sure what to believe. (Old testament to new testament, basically) So what we have is a god who can change the rules at any moment and requires us to act in arbitrary ways and believe things which can not be confirmed... It's a game where everyone is mostly setup to lose and the penalty for getting it all wrong is eternal suffering.

I could go on and on... but the basic point is, when you have a leader who acts in the way god is described to act, they are often described with less than glorious terms. Tyrant comes to mind. And given this scenario, even if I was to accept the premise of god and Jesus, it would seem that as an ethical and principled human being, I would also be honor bound to resist such a being. It would seem to me that being in heaven would be an empty reward, knowing that I had to bow to the whims of a tyrant. And even if I was in hell, atleast I didn't sell my "soul."

The immorality of the scenario that exists in Christianity seems obvious to me. I'm not sure how that could be rationalized away.

Romans 1:20

"For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

God has made His existence plain to everyone. The thrust of your argument is that if God does exist He is unjust. Yet, people don't come to God for a very specific reason, and it isn't that He is unjust. It is the fact that He *is* just that people do not come to God.

John 3:19-21

"And the judgment is based on this fact: God's light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil."

All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.

But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants."

What you're talking about is pride. What you are saying is that you refuse to submit to God because you don't think He is worthy of your worship. I would ask by what standard are you judging God? By the standards of your personal morality? Well, I hate to tell you this but our righteousness is like filthy rags compared to the righteousness of God.

Romans 3:10

"As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one"

Everyone has fallen short of the grace of God; everyone has sinned and done evil. No sinner is capable of judging God.

Isaiah 55:9

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

What you really don't want to do is repent from your sins and change your behavior. You wish to do things your own way, without God, and you even stated that you would willing to go to hell to make the point. That in itself is madness.

Romans 6:23

"For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."

God knew from the beginning that we would break His laws and do evil. Because He is just, He holds us accountable for our sins. However, He is also merciful, which is the reason He sent His Son into the world as a sacrifice for the remission of our sins.

Romans 3:21-22

"But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are."

God made a provision for us in His Son, that we may be saved even though we deserve to be punished. He sacrificed His life so that anyone who believes on His name will be forgiven and receive eternal life.

Now, specifically, here is the word Jesus gave me for you and the others here on videosift:

Matthew 11:28

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest."

He has told me that if you ask to know Him in sincerity, if you pray to Him and ask for Him to reveal Himself to you, He will do it. He will show you that He is Almighty God and He will give you rest from your burdens. So please, do not take my word for it. You can find out if these words are trustworthy by asking God to reveal Himself to you. God bless.

>> ^braindonut:
The immediately prior comments to these have excellent questions and points and I'm looking forward to seeing the response. Here's another hypothetical scenario:
So, let's say I accept the premise of god and Jesus being here to save me. Being that god created everything and setup the entire premise of this universe, it follows that he's created the conditions which I need Jesus to save me from. So, god has created a universe and then added sentient people to it, but he also set things up so that if those sentient beings don't do what he wants, he'll torture them forever. If they do what he wants for some short amount of time, however, he'll let them worship him forever.
And keep in mind that within this scenario, he's not providing any direct presence or interaction with the sentient beings involved, but rather showing his presence through repeated anecdotes of unconfirmed and unexplained experiences claimed by followers that he has. So if someone is skeptical, they are wholly screwed and lose the game. And he's given these sentient beings the capacity for reasoning and skepticism, so many of them tend to naturally want explanations for things... But god wishes to remain unexplainable and inaccessible for whatever reason. The scenario is looking more and more like some kind of twisted game.
And somewhere along the line, god changed his mind and changed all the rules for the game. Somewhere along the line, he changed how to get to the super awesome fun worship land of heaven. He decided that his previous system wasn't cutting it, so he changed it. Good for him, but now people are even more confused and not sure what to believe. (Old testament to new testament, basically) So what we have is a god who can change the rules at any moment and requires us to act in arbitrary ways and believe things which can not be confirmed... It's a game where everyone is mostly setup to lose and the penalty for getting it all wrong is eternal suffering.
I could go on and on... but the basic point is, when you have a leader who acts in the way god is described to act, they are often described with less than glorious terms. Tyrant comes to mind. And given this scenario, even if I was to accept the premise of god and Jesus, it would seem that as an ethical and principled human being, I would also be honor bound to resist such a being. It would seem to me that being in heaven would be an empty reward, knowing that I had to bow to the whims of a tyrant. And even if I was in hell, atleast I didn't sell my "soul."
The immorality of the scenario that exists in Christianity seems obvious to me. I'm not sure how that could be rationalized away.

This question is half curiosity...

Going by what you just wrote, and that God is just.. I'm curious what your take on this is -

What if someone lives a generally good life, is a good person, helps others, etc.. basicaly never hurts anyone, but also never chooses to believe in God?

With that question in mind, what happens to someone who is mean to others, etc.. but never once is exposed to christianity, never learns of it (think, an isolated colony on an island)?

How do you think God handles either of those scenarios?

>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^packo:
>> ^sme4r:
here's the atheist's Pastor's website:
http://www.howardstorm.com/Howard_Storm.html
There are no atheists in foxholes - meaning that in the face of death most people are all of a sudden spiritual.

Christopher Hitchens is a good example of this...
oh, wait... no he isn't
its good to know I can lead a life full of sin, and will be given the opportunity like everyone else to shout out "Jesus" in fevered dreams and be saved
or wait, maybe not like everyone else, because that would sorta be a cop out
maybe this guy is just special... but i thought everyone was in "His" eyes...
well then maybe he works in mysterious ways, and this guy can't convey to you his experience, like the love Jesus felt for him as he carried him... and thats the proof... see?
no? but he wrote a book
no? but the universe is sooo complex, it needs a designer...
no? but everyone believes when they are in a fox hole

Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion

just curious, are you just picking the parts of the book that back your arguement, or the whole book?

In scenerio one, it's important to remember that Gods standard is perfection. What we consider good is not what God considers good. In fact, the only human to ever live up to that standard was Jesus. This is what the bible says:

John 3:18

"He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

It is because Christ is the only provision we have to escape the judgement. Without Christ, we have no provision and must pay the penalty for our sins.

As for the other matter, this is what the bible says about it:

Romans 2:6-16

God “will repay each person according to what they have done.”[a] 7 To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. 8 But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. 9 There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; 10 but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. 11 For God does not show favoritism.

12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God’s sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God judges people’s secrets through Jesus Christ.

We are not responsible for knowledge we have never been given. But everyone who hears the truth and rejects it is guilty already.



>> ^Drax:
This question is half curiosity...
Going by what you just wrote, and that God is just.. I'm curious what your take on this is -
What if someone lives a generally good life, is a good person, helps others, etc.. basicaly never hurts anyone, but also never chooses to believe in God?
With that question in mind, what happens to someone who is mean to others, etc.. but never once is exposed to christianity, never learns of it (think, an isolated colony on an island)?
How do you think God handles either of those scenarios?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

So everything is just in how it works till you hear about Christianity.. thennnnnnn things get a little technical.

Got it.

Good person --> Knows about religion --> Believes in God --> Goes up

Good person --> Doesn't know about religion --> Doesn't believe in (the) God --> Goes up

Good person --> Knows about religion --> Doesn't believe in God --> Doesn't go up

God does exist.

In you. like kir_mokum said..

http://www.erowid.org/chemicals/dmt/dmt_basics.shtml


http://www.alexgrey.com/a-gallery/dying.html

*talks
*bullshit
*death
*fear

Adding video to channels (Death, Fear, Talks) - requested by BoneRemake.

I just read the description for lies and this falls in place as well so *lies.

Adding video to channels (Lies) - requested by BoneRemake.

I appreciate the detail you put into your response, Shiny. I really do. However, your answers aren't really making sense to me, or directly answering the situation that I put forth. You aren't responding to the obvious immorality of the situation.

I get the argument of "people don't want to come to god, because their sins will be revealed." But this is a fallacious argument - an ad hominem attack. Just saying that I don't believe in something because I clearly have a bunch of faults that I'm trying to hide does not make it so.

And by what do I measure my morality? I measure it through the impact on others, how much it affects the general well being of humanity. Obviously, it's my own morality which is constantly improving and questioning itself. However, saying that it's filthy rags in comparison to god does not make it so.

And yes, everyone has done "evil," if you want to call it that. Including god, if we accept that premise. I've read the bible, and I underlined every situation that was immorality due to god with a red pencil. There were too many underlines to count. But how does one consider something immoral? That's a big and excellent question. The wholesale slaughter of humanity, aka genocide - that qualifies as evil for me. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the evil that is attributed to the Christian god.

And simply saying that gods thoughts are higher than my thoughts does not make it so, nor does it convince me even remotely. What I am looking for is for YOUR thoughts to be higher than mine, since you are currently the person I am engaging with. If gods thoughts are higher than mine, he certainly hasn't demonstrated it. And that saying "You can't talk your way out of something you behaved yourself into" applies here. (of course, I'm just talking stories...)

And I didn't say I would go to hell to make a point. I said that if the premise I laid out is accurate (which I assume it is since you didn't challenge it), it seems obvious to me that an ethical person who truly cares about their integrity wouldn't be able to side with god. At the very least, it would be an extreme conflict that would take enormous rationalization to sweep aside. But what I described doesn't seem like madness, to me. I think it seems like the only honorable and honest position.

And the idea that god would setup a world where he knows people aren't going to do what he wants, so he has to punish them, but then he gets tired of that so he eventually creates a manifestation of himself that he then gets killed/sacrificed... and all of this is so that he can create a loophole for all of humanity to make it into heaven... I'm sorry, this doesn't seem like godly, virtuous behavior, it seems like bronze age mythology and reasoning.

In conclusion, I truthfully used to be a very devout Christian. I did believe, strongly. However, I never experienced anything that would indicate that god exists. I did ask for him to reveal himself and I still have a standing invitation which he is more than welcome to fulfill at any moment. However, I find nothing interesting or compelling about the concept that I have to truly believe in order for him to show himself to me. One, that clearly wasn't the case (and don't tell me that I clearly didn't believe enough...). Two, deeply held beliefs are shown to cause people to look for validation of their world view, no matter how small or insignificant, because it's those rationalizations and experiences that fuels their continued dependency on belief.

I make no claims to knowing that a god doesn't exist, but I definitely have more than enough reasons not to believe in the god of the Bible. Such a leap is not something I can honestly do - and yes, that's a moral stance. It's the same reason I don't lie to people - I also can't lie to myself.

I really appreciate how much time and effort you put into your response. Thank you very much.

Upvoted for the discussion, which I think is quality, more than the video (which is much less so, but still Sift-worthy). There's one thing I'd like to add to the discussion.

I suppose what disturbs me most about the religion/atheism rift that sometimes appears in the comments section on the Sift is that some individuals (on both sides) take a condescending view of those who don't think exactly as they do (you'll find several examples among the posts here). It's as if they think that their viewpoint somehow gives them (moral or intellectual) superiority and they should be free to mock others who differ in opinion. As many high-fives as this mocking may score you from others who share the same viewpoint, I don't find it very helpful to the discussion.

The way I see it, we all share this planet and have to figure out a way to get along. Religion/religious people aren't going anywhere anytime soon (unless the Bible actually is true and rapture occurs in the near future ). All of us are going to have to work together to solve the problems that are facing us as a species (continued warfare around the world, global warming, pollution, dwindling resources, etc.). These problems aren't going to be solved through our insulting each other over what we believe.

I guess in my really long-winded way I'm just asking people on the Sift to be polite. Some people believe in UFOs, some in ghosts, some in gods, and some in no gods. Let them. No, they don't have the right to force their beliefs on others, but neither do others have the right to force their lack of beliefs on others either.

>> ^braindonut:

And simply saying that gods thoughts are higher than my thoughts does not make it so, nor does it convince me even remotely.

this sentence stuck out to me. It reveals quite a bit about what you think about God, or any god for that matter should they exist, which is to say, very little. It would be foolish to think that this disposition is not an influence on your view of religion, or at least the gods of various religions (in this case the God of the Bible)

@braindonut

"I get the argument of "people don't want to come to god, because their sins will be revealed." But this is a fallacious argument - an ad hominem attack. Just saying that I don't believe in something because I clearly have a bunch of faults that I'm trying to hide does not make it so."

Well, I am not going to press you here since I don't know what you've done in your life, but in my experience this is true. Most of the people I find running away from God are prideful and sinful, and they don't want to stop. They don't want their "freedom" to sin restricted in any way because they are only living for that gratification and they don't think there is anything else.

Remember, I believe in the literal truth of these statements..it only seems like an attack to you because you see all things are being equal here, and don't think God is real. I see it as a completely accurate description of the state of things, then and now.

"And by what do I measure my morality? I measure it through the impact on others, how much it affects the general well being of humanity. Obviously, it's my own morality which is constantly improving and questioning itself. However, saying that it's filthy rags in comparison to god does not make it so."

If God exists, and is Holy, then our righteousness would be a broken thing compared to His..since we're all sinners. In any case, I would ask..how would you measure the general well being of humanity? How do you know what is best for one human, let alone all of them?

"And yes, everyone has done "evil," if you want to call it that. Including god, if we accept that premise. I've read the bible, and I underlined every situation that was immorality due to god with a red pencil. There were too many underlines to count. But how does one consider something immoral? That's a big and excellent question. The wholesale slaughter of humanity, aka genocide - that qualifies as evil for me. And that's just the tip of the iceberg in regards to the evil that is attributed to the Christian god."

How do you judge an omnipotent being? What is your basis of comparison? How do you judge a holy God who has never done evil? Lets take the flood for example. You say wiping out humanity was evil. Yet this is what the bible says:

Genesis 6:5-8

The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

It says that man was entirely corrupted except for Noah. That he was the only man left capable of doing Gods will. Now, would it be more merciful to have let Noah perish in this environment and let man become wholly degenerate, living completely futile lives until they utterly destroyed themselves anyway? Or was it better for God to wipe the slate clean and give humanity another chance?

"And simply saying that gods thoughts are higher than my thoughts does not make it so, nor does it convince me even remotely. What I am looking for is for YOUR thoughts to be higher than mine, since you are currently the person I am engaging with. If gods thoughts are higher than mine, he certainly hasn't demonstrated it. And that saying "You can't talk your way out of something you behaved yourself into" applies here. (of course, I'm just talking stories...)

And I didn't say I would go to hell to make a point. I said that if the premise I laid out is accurate (which I assume it is since you didn't challenge it), it seems obvious to me that an ethical person who truly cares about their integrity wouldn't be able to side with god. At the very least, it would be an extreme conflict that would take enormous rationalization to sweep aside. But what I described doesn't seem like madness, to me. I think it seems like the only honorable and honest position."

I just made the point to illustrate that God is Holy, and it is impossible for someone who isn't holy to judge someone who is. The ultimate point I was making really was that its impossible for any human being to judge God.

I am an ethical person, and God is the reason for that. Someone who doesn't know God is only going to see God from the angle of His punishment, because it is hanging over their heads. God is love, and He doesn't want to punish anyone. But if He didn't punish sin, He wouldn't be just.

I think people have a lot of hypocripsy on this viewpoint here..for instance..atheists will support the death penalty and life in prison for serious crimes. To an atheist, this punishment is permanent because they believe death is the end of life..but they have no problem supporting a human doing that to another human. Yet God, who created us and has the power of life and death..they can't support His punishment. Would it be just for humans to let murders run free? If we did this place would quickly devolve into anarchy. So if that is just punishment why isn't Gods punishment just?

No one here would advocate we shouldn't lock up rapists murderers and pedophiles..so why you are outraged when God punishes our crimes? He is the only one who could actually be completely fair about it, knowing as He does every last detail.

"And the idea that god would setup a world where he knows people aren't going to do what he wants, so he has to punish them, but then he gets tired of that so he eventually creates a manifestation of himself that he then gets killed/sacrificed... and all of this is so that he can create a loophole for all of humanity to make it into heaven... I'm sorry, this doesn't seem like godly, virtuous behavior, it seems like bronze age mythology and reasoning."

I think it's clear that God has foreknowledge. Yet, I don't think it's all predestined. God gives us choices and we couldn't make a choice if we didn't have free will to make one. When we receive Christ it literally says that God doesn't remember our sins anymore. So, to me this suggests He can arrange things around His omnipresent knowledge. He could easily set things up to give us real freedom. I think I could even figure out a way to do that.

"In conclusion, I truthfully used to be a very devout Christian. I did believe, strongly. However, I never experienced anything that would indicate that god exists. I did ask for him to reveal himself and I still have a standing invitation which he is more than welcome to fulfill at any moment. However, I find nothing interesting or compelling about the concept that I have to truly believe in order for him to show himself to me. One, that clearly wasn't the case (and don't tell me that I clearly didn't believe enough...). Two, deeply held beliefs are shown to cause people to look for validation of their world view, no matter how small or insignificant, because it's those rationalizations and experiences that fuels their continued dependency on belief

I make no claims to knowing that a god doesn't exist, but I definitely have more than enough reasons not to believe in the god of the Bible. Such a leap is not something I can honestly do - and yes, that's a moral stance. It's the same reason I don't lie to people - I also can't lie to myself. I really appreciate how much time and effort you put into your response. Thank you very much."

Well, lets take the example of Mother Teresa. She didn't hear from God for a period of over 40 years. Yet, she kept the faith and did what God commanded her to do the entire time. Personally, I have special revelation that God is real. It's not an issue for me at all..to me God is as real as my reflection in a mirror.

Now lets take your case as an example. Perhaps God has tested your love. You know first of all that we know God through faith, a faith which you abandoned after not getting the evidence you desired, which is entirely contrary to what God told you to do. Now if you were God and you knew that someone would love you only for a time and then leave you, unless you provided something extra above and beyond the perfect love you were already giving them, along with the fact that they wouldn't honor any of the promises they made to you ultimately, maybe you wouldn't give them any signs either. Maybe you would let them go and hope they would be able to see the difference and come back to you. Just a thought.

I also appreciate this discussion and I think you for your civility and magnanomousness. God bless.

>> ^BoneRemake:
I just read the description for lies and this falls in place as well so lies.


What you mean to say:



"I wanted to be spiteful towards you so I stuck your video in the lies channel to suggest your beliefs are "*bullshit" "

edit: oh you downvoted my video too..real classy

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^shinyblurry:
Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.

You didn't resolve how God got there either. You just said he was eternal and you were happy to leave it at that. So why call Dawkins out for doing the same thing? And why should I believe you over him?
(Let's no forget to mention the fact that his idea was a suggestion and yours is what you're basing your whole life around.)


(whistles)

I can't help but notice you skipped over my question so I will ask you again if someone were to find personal testimony similar to this where it was Muhammed or Allah who "saved" someone, would you drop your cross and convert? Also quoting the bible is exactly as compelling as quoting the qu'ran i.e. not at all.

I think maybe you misunderstand my point - which is my fault, for being unclear.

For me to think anything other than this would mean that I would be accepting of an unproven, unprovable premise. You have to remember, I'm not even convinced that god is real at this point, or atleast not the god of the Bible. Being that this is the case, the only representation that the deity has is the Bible itself and any representatives of that religion. So when they bring up that god's thoughts are higher than mine and I'm incapable of understanding them, this is often a convenient way of not having to explain anything. It seems more of a distraction and a wild card. It's a convenient excuse for things unexplainable. So yes, simply stating that god's thoughts are higher than mine does not make it so.

However, I will concede that if a god exists, its thoughts are likely far more complex than mine. But this really adds to my skepticism when it comes to the god of the Bible, since I'm seeing absolutely no signs of higher thought.

>> ^smooman:

>> ^braindonut:
And simply saying that gods thoughts are higher than my thoughts does not make it so, nor does it convince me even remotely.
this sentence stuck out to me. It reveals quite a bit about what you think about God, or any god for that matter should they exist, which is to say, very little. It would be foolish to think that this disposition is not an influence on your view of religion, or at least the gods of various religions (in this case the God of the Bible)

>> ^shinyblurry:

I would ask by what standard are you judging God? By the standards of your personal morality? Well, I hate to tell you this but our righteousness is like filthy rags compared to the righteousness of God.


And you, of course, have this on authority from God himself, unless Satan wrote the bible, in which case you have been taken in by the deceiver, a possibility which you have no way to refute, except by your own prideful claims of revelation.

>> ^SDGundamX: I suppose what disturbs me most about the religion/atheism rift that sometimes appears in the comments section on the Sift is that some individuals (on both sides) take a condescending view of those who don't think exactly as they do (you'll find several examples among the posts here).



I find it's kind of hard not to have that seem to come through, and certainly there's some blunt cases of it.. but I wasn't trying to be condecending myself, and yet.. when I go back and read what I wrote it does come across that way to some degree.

I don't have a problem with anything anyone believes, till they push it on others. And I have more of a dispute with actual religion than anything spiritual (I figure we are limited to our senses, and I would think it would be odd if we're capable of sensing everything that makes up the universe).

Christian religion to me just seems so man made. All the weird logics and loopholes to it. Why would a god care if a good person who never worshiped any god passed on. What about that makes them bad? Oh right, I inherited all the sin of my predicessors. Dang, quite the catch 22 there.. guess I have to sign up.

All said and done though, I welcome anyone who's going to post and pitch in to the sift.
(except Pennypacker.. just kidding.. sorta)

Something eternal always was, by definition it didn't "get there". It always was there. Something can't come from nothing. Either there was always something, or there couldn't be anything. This points to an Uncasued Cause..ie, an eternal God. Dawkins theory, which is a ridiculous explanation for the Universe appearing designed, just complicates his position expodentially, because then he has to explain infinite Universes instead of just one. Either way, its an infinite chain of causality without a Creator.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.

You didn't resolve how God got there either. You just said he was eternal and you were happy to leave it at that. So why call Dawkins out for doing the same thing? And why should I believe you over him?
(Let's no forget to mention the fact that his idea was a suggestion and yours is what you're basing your whole life around.)

(whistles)

Allah doesn't save anyone. There is no atonement in Islam. Instead of following what Jesus said, Muhammed decided to create his own system of belief and regulate Jesus to the status of prophet. Islam says on one hand that Jesus was a great prophet. It actually speaks very highly of Jesus. On the other hand, islam doesn't accept accept His testimony; indeed most muslims dont even know what it is.

From that perspective, if Jesus was a true prophet of God then every word He said was true. If every word He said was true, He is the Son of God and not just a prophet. Which means that Muhammed was a false prophet because he didn't speak the truth about Jesus. It's pretty simple and I am surprised more muslims don't see this obvious contridiction. On that basis alone I would never convert to Islam.

Jesus can reach anyone, however, even those who know nothing about him. Check out this muslims testimony:

http://videosift.com/video/A-Muslim-Man-s-AMAZING-Testimony-about-Jesus

>> ^Ti_Moth:
I can't help but notice you skipped over my question so I will ask you again if someone were to find personal testimony similar to this where it was Muhammed or Allah who "saved" someone, would you drop your cross and convert? Also quoting the bible is exactly as compelling as quoting the qu'ran i.e. not at all.

>> ^dgandhi:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I would ask by what standard are you judging God? By the standards of your personal morality? Well, I hate to tell you this but our righteousness is like filthy rags compared to the righteousness of God.

And you, of course, have this on authority from God himself, unless Satan wrote the bible, in which case you have been taken in by the deceiver, a possibility which you have no way to refute, except by your own prideful claims of revelation.


Satan is the reason there are over 30,000 denominations instead of one. Take catholicism for example. Almost nothing they practice is biblical. In fact much of what they do is condemned by the bible, such as their worship of Mary which is idolotry. Satan has definitely had his hand in the affairs of the church.

The only reason we know about Satan is because of the bible. If he did author the bible then he is an idiot because even I would know to not mention myself. You're a much better deceiver when no one even knows you exist. This is largely how he has deceived everyone to begin with. Satan is so clever that he has even convinced Satanists he doesn't exist. Sad but true.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Allah doesn't save anyone. There is no atonement in Islam. Instead of following what Jesus said, Muhammed decided to create his own system of belief and regulate Jesus to the status of prophet. Islam says on one hand that Jesus was a great prophet. It actually speaks very highly of Jesus. On the other hand, islam doesn't accept accept His testimony; indeed most muslims dont even know what it is.
From that perspective, if Jesus was a true prophet of God then every word He said was true. If every word He said was true, He is the Son of God and not just a prophet. Which means that Muhammed was a false prophet because he didn't speak the truth about Jesus. It's pretty simple and I am surprised more muslims don't see this obvious contridiction. On that basis alone I would never convert to Islam.
Jesus can reach anyone, however, even those who know nothing about him. Check out this muslims testimony:
http://videosift.com/video/A-Muslim-Man-s-AMAZING-Testimony-about-Jesus

>> ^Ti_Moth:
I can't help but notice you skipped over my question so I will ask you again if someone were to find personal testimony similar to this where it was Muhammed or Allah who "saved" someone, would you drop your cross and convert? Also quoting the bible is exactly as compelling as quoting the qu'ran i.e. not at all.



there are more gospels of jesus in the q'ran than in the bible but many of those gospels were written 120 years after christs resurrection while biblical gospels were transcribed 70 years a.d..
so the historical relevance is suspect if only due to the length of time after christs death.

if muslims believed that jesus was the son of god and the door to their salvation they would be christians..not muslims.
i dont see why that is a hard concept to grasp.

>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.


Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag.(show it anyway)

Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.

I don't mean it's rigged..I mean that even though we had a good discussion going and it's popular enough, people withheld their vote or even downvoted because of their opinion on the subject matter..it's not that the subject matter is of no interest, which it obviously is..it's because they disagree with it.

It's also because I am not well liked in the community, for *whatever* reason..if I was more popular, people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me (6 so far)..I mean this is my first published video..quite a welcome right.

I think this video proves the bias here at the sift..you'd probably be hard pressed to find another video with such high views and comments and few votes. Of course I don't think there is any disagreement there is a bias against theists here..but its worth noting in any case.

I mean here is a video that gets people talking and makes people think, even if they don't agree with it..yet I would probably get into the top 10 instantly if I posted yet another angry atheist railing against God. Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem like it.

>> ^dag:
Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I don't mean it's rigged..I mean that even though we had a good discussion going and it's popular enough, people withheld their vote or even downvoted because of their opinion on the subject matter..it's not that the subject matter is of no interest, which it obviously is..it's because they disagree with it.
It's also because I am not well liked in the community, for whatever reason..if I was more popular, people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me (6 so far)..I mean this is my first published video..quite a welcome right.
I think this video proves the bias here at the sift..you'd probably be hard pressed to find another video with such high views and comments and few votes. Of course I don't think there is any disagreement there is a bias against theists here..but its worth noting in any case.
I mean here is a video that gets people talking and makes people think, even if they don't agree with it..yet I would probably get into the top 10 instantly if I posted yet another angry atheist railing against God. Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem like it.
>> ^dag:
Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.





DO NOT LET DOWNVOTES HURT YOUR FEELINGS, IT LEADS TO THE DARK SIDE, FIRST YOU FEAR THEM, AND THEY COME, THEN YOU HATE THEM AND THE STILL COME AND THEN FROM THERE.... You meet bantington blade or so far worse fate possibly fighting your own son or killing your master etc . etc.

*promote because I have JESUS in my Heart, Jesus in my heart. This is for all the free pancakes I got when I went to catholic school. best memories I have are from the watered down orange drink and endless supply of pancakes. A Hearty meal a pancake is.

Promoting this video back to the front page; last published Tuesday, May 10th, 2011 3:57am PDT - promote requested by BoneRemake.

there are a lot of people of faith on the sift, several of them. more than you think apparently. and they're generally well-liked. it probably has a lot to do with them not carrying a cross on their backs and whining that their shitty testimonial sift didnt fair too well in a community that values empirical evidence and logic. there are a lot views because there is a lot of discussion happening and thats attracting people, but what this man said wasn't any good, isn't anything new and astounding, and isn't worthy of an upvote. so the votes are low. you've prompted a great discussion, be grateful and quit taking the fact that a community thats mostly non-religious and values evidence and logic over testimony didn't like what this man had to say.

"if i were more popular people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me"

this is the most irritating thing to me. i have yet to see the downvote bias in action here. but there always seems to be someone carrying around a persecution complex, sifting crappy videos and blaming their low vote totals on some imaginary popularity contest. there isn't a popularity contest. one of the dudes with one of the highest vote ratios i know of has barely left any comments whatsoever and speaks to noone. noone knows who is. "popularity" does not translate into upvotes. nor does it even mean youre necessarily "well-liked" whatever that means since this is, after all, the fucking internet. i'd say the screenname "peggedbea" is fairly well known because ive been pretty vocal and active for years. i have made "internet friends" here, but it certainly doesn't help my videos get sifted. and it doesnt get my comments upvoted. sometimes i say something relevant and people like it, mostly i say something bitchy and people dont read it. its not personal.

and you just called anyone who didn't like what this guy had to say "jerks". thats the point of the sift, if you dont like it.. you downvote it. its not personal. at all. its how the site works.

people not liking this video has more to do with the fact that its lame than it does to do with you personally. this titty baby persecution complex is fucking lame. get over yourself.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I don't mean it's rigged..I mean that even though we had a good discussion going and it's popular enough, people withheld their vote or even downvoted because of their opinion on the subject matter..it's not that the subject matter is of no interest, which it obviously is..it's because they disagree with it.
It's also because I am not well liked in the community, for whatever reason..if I was more popular, people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me (6 so far)..I mean this is my first published video..quite a welcome right.
I think this video proves the bias here at the sift..you'd probably be hard pressed to find another video with such high views and comments and few votes. Of course I don't think there is any disagreement there is a bias against theists here..but its worth noting in any case.
I mean here is a video that gets people talking and makes people think, even if they don't agree with it..yet I would probably get into the top 10 instantly if I posted yet another angry atheist railing against God. Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem like it.
>> ^dag:
Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.

i've never had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a "creator" i understand how one could exist, and the need to believe that one exists and even the desire/importance of pleasing it.

i could never understand the importance of jesus. i'm confused how any of my petty little human sins can cause me to be so abominably filthy in the eyes of my "father" that he needs to have a son and then torture and kill it to make my sins ok. noone has ever been able to offer a satisfactory explaination of jesus's role in the plan of salvation for me.

hehe, you said titty

>> ^peggedbea: this titty baby persecution complex is fucking lame. get over yourself.

you're right, i am probably becoming a magnet for them..i will change polarities and say..BRING IT ON

thanks for the promote

>> ^BoneRemake:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't mean it's rigged..I mean that even though we had a good discussion going and it's popular enough, people withheld their vote or even downvoted because of their opinion on the subject matter..it's not that the subject matter is of no interest, which it obviously is..it's because they disagree with it.
It's also because I am not well liked in the community, for whatever reason..if I was more popular, people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me (6 so far)..I mean this is my first published video..quite a welcome right.
I think this video proves the bias here at the sift..you'd probably be hard pressed to find another video with such high views and comments and few votes. Of course I don't think there is any disagreement there is a bias against theists here..but its worth noting in any case.
I mean here is a video that gets people talking and makes people think, even if they don't agree with it..yet I would probably get into the top 10 instantly if I posted yet another angry atheist railing against God. Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem like it.
>> ^dag:
Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.



DO NOT LET DOWNVOTES HURT YOUR FEELINGS, IT LEADS TO THE DARK SIDE, FIRST YOU FEAR THEM, AND THEY COME, THEN YOU HATE THEM AND THE STILL COME AND THEN FROM THERE.... You meet bantington blade or so far worse fate possibly fighting your own son or killing your master etc . etc.

yeah sure, i still see the bias. lets just see how it goes..on another note, your reproductive system is showing

>> ^peggedbea:
there are a lot of people of faith on the sift, several of them. more than you think apparently. and they're generally well-liked. it probably has a lot to do with them not carrying a cross on their backs and whining that their shitty testimonial sift didnt fair too well in a community that values empirical evidence and logic. there are a lot views because there is a lot of discussion happening and thats attracting people, but what this man said wasn't any good, isn't anything new and astounding, and isn't worthy of an upvote. so the votes are low. you've prompted a great discussion, be grateful and quit taking the fact that a community thats mostly non-religious and values evidence and logic over testimony didn't like what this man had to say.
"if i were more popular people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me"
this is the most irritating thing to me. i have yet to see the downvote bias in action here. but there always seems to be someone carrying around a persecution complex, sifting crappy videos and blaming their low vote totals on some imaginary popularity contest. there isn't a popularity contest. one of the dudes with one of the highest vote ratios i know of has barely left any comments whatsoever and speaks to noone. noone knows who is. "popularity" does not translate into upvotes. nor does it even mean youre necessarily "well-liked" whatever that means since this is, after all, the fucking internet. i'd say the screenname "peggedbea" is fairly well known because ive been pretty vocal and active for years. i have made "internet friends" here, but it certainly doesn't help my videos get sifted. and it doesnt get my comments upvoted. sometimes i say something relevant and people like it, mostly i say something bitchy and people dont read it. its not personal.
and you just called anyone who didn't like what this guy had to say "jerks". thats the point of the sift, if you dont like it.. you downvote it. its not personal. at all. its how the site works.
people not liking this video has more to do with the fact that its lame than it does to do with you personally. this titty baby persecution complex is fucking lame. get over yourself.
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't mean it's rigged..I mean that even though we had a good discussion going and it's popular enough, people withheld their vote or even downvoted because of their opinion on the subject matter..it's not that the subject matter is of no interest, which it obviously is..it's because they disagree with it.
It's also because I am not well liked in the community, for whatever reason..if I was more popular, people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me (6 so far)..I mean this is my first published video..quite a welcome right.
I think this video proves the bias here at the sift..you'd probably be hard pressed to find another video with such high views and comments and few votes. Of course I don't think there is any disagreement there is a bias against theists here..but its worth noting in any case.
I mean here is a video that gets people talking and makes people think, even if they don't agree with it..yet I would probably get into the top 10 instantly if I posted yet another angry atheist railing against God. Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem like it.
>> ^dag:
Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.

Cool..I didn't know there was anything good about catholic school..you've opened my eyes

>> ^BoneRemake:
promote because I have JESUS in my Heart, Jesus in my heart. This is for all the free pancakes I got when I went to catholic school. best memories I have are from the watered down orange drink and endless supply of pancakes. A Hearty meal a pancake is.

>> ^peggedbea:
i've never had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a "creator" i understand how one could exist, and the need to believe that one exists and even the desire/importance of pleasing it.
i could never understand the importance of jesus. i'm confused how any of my petty little human sins can cause me to be so abominably filthy in the eyes of my "father" that he needs to have a son and then torture and kill it to make my sins ok. noone has ever been able to offer a satisfactory explaination of jesus's role in the plan of salvation for me.


Well, it's not exactly an easy thing to wrap your mind around. Firstly, if you don't have the spirit it will seem as nonsense. The bible even says this:

1 Corinthians 2:14

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

So, there's that. I'll try to make it comprehensible..

In the beginning, man had a perfect relationship with God. Adam and Eve lived in paradise
with God, and He would come and dwell among them as well. God gave them one command, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He told them that if they ate of that fruit they would surely die. To this point, Adam and Eve were immortal and did not know death.

Shortly after, Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the fruit. Satan told them that God was lying, and that He told them to stay away from it because it would make them like God, knowing good and evil. Until this point, Adam and Eve had completely trusted God to take care of their needs. Now, they desired to have His knowledge and make their own judgements about what is good and what is evil. This is what brought about the fall.

They found out quickly that Satan had lied, and that they would die. Their sin had brought death into the world, and it has been inherited by their descendents ever since. This is what is meant by "original sin" They were kicked out of the garden and forced to toil and labor, and their days were numbered from then on.

Now here is the reason Christ came. To break the curse of death, liberate man from his sins, and reconcile him back to God. People focus on the death, but that is only part of it. Since no man had been able to live up to the requirements of Gods law, they had all earned condemnation under the law, which means everyone is guilty and no one is going to Heaven.

Therefore, to make man right with Him, He sent His Son to Earth as a human being. Christ brought His divinity down to Earth, as a man, and lived a perfect life. His sacrifice on the cross was for the atonement of all sins, past present and future. He was only able to do this because He himself had never sinned. He took our place for the punishment we deserve. Meaning, anyone who believes in Christ will have His sins forgiven because Christ already paid the price. This is the purpose of His death, not that God needed to torture someone, but to give all of mankind access to God through Him, through the remission of their sins. His resurrection broke the power of death over man, and guaranteed eternal life for any man who believes in His name.

So, any man, no matter what he has done, what just punishment he has earned..where ever he might be..by faith in the life death and resurrection of Jesus, he has his sins forgiven, a promise of eternal life, and justification before Gods very throne as an adopted Son of God.

Jesus, who is divine, made us like Him. Salvation is a free gift we didn't earn. To make it into Heaven we must be transformed. Our sin nature must be removed and we must live in the Spirit of God. Anyone who refuses to be transformed by Gods spirit cannot enter Heaven, because the sin nature will not be allowed in. This is why Christ is the only name by which we can be saved. Hope this helps. God bless.

All this talk about some bullshit.

I'll further elaborate. Though we may see some of our sins as minor, just one sin was all it took to cause the fall. One sin was all it took to seperate man from God and bring death into the world. God is Holy, and can not tolerate evil. To be in Gods presence we must be perfect. Adam and Eve were perfect until they sinned. When they fell from grace they could no longer live with God in paradise.

This is why Christ came, to again conform us to the image of God and perfect us so we can again enjoy living with God, this time forever in the Kingdom of Heaven. Christ is the new Adam, the first fruits of the world to come.



>> ^peggedbea:
i've never had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a "creator" i understand how one could exist, and the need to believe that one exists and even the desire/importance of pleasing it.
i could never understand the importance of jesus. i'm confused how any of my petty little human sins can cause me to be so abominably filthy in the eyes of my "father" that he needs to have a son and then torture and kill it to make my sins ok. noone has ever been able to offer a satisfactory explaination of jesus's role in the plan of salvation for me.

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^peggedbea:
Well, it's not exactly an easy thing to wrap your mind around. Firstly, if you don't have the spirit it will seem as nonsense. The bible even says this:
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So, there's that. I'll try to make it comprehensible..
In the beginning, man had a perfect relationship with God. Adam and Eve lived in paradise
with God, and He would come and dwell among them as well. God gave them one command, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He told them that if they ate of that fruit they would surely die. To this point, Adam and Eve were immortal and did not know death.
Shortly after, Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the fruit. Satan told them that God was lying, and that He told them to stay away from it because it would make them like God, knowing good and evil. Until this point, Adam and Eve had completely trusted God to take care of their needs. Now, they desired to have His knowledge and make their own judgements about what is good and what is evil. This is what brought about the fall.
They found out quickly that Satan had lied, and that they would die. Their sin had brought death into the world, and it has been inherited by their descendents ever since. This is what is meant by "original sin" They were kicked out of the garden and forced to toil and labor, and their days were numbered from then on.
Now here is the reason Christ came. To break the curse of death, liberate man from his sins, and reconcile him back to God. People focus on the death, but that is only part of it. Since no man had been able to live up to the requirements of Gods law, they had all earned condemnation under the law, which means everyone is guilty and no one is going to Heaven.
Therefore, to make man right with Him, He sent His Son to Earth as a human being. Christ brought His divinity down to Earth, as a man, and lived a perfect life. His sacrifice on the cross was for the atonement of all sins, past present and future. He was only able to do this because He himself had never sinned. He took our place for the punishment we deserve. Meaning, anyone who believes in Christ will have His sins forgiven because Christ already paid the price. This is the purpose of His death, not that God needed to torture someone, but to give all of mankind access to God through Him, through the remission of their sins. His resurrection broke the power of death over man, and guaranteed eternal life for any man who believes in His name.
So, any man, no matter what he has done, what just punishment he has earned..where ever he might be..by faith in the life death and resurrection of Jesus, he has his sins forgiven, a promise of eternal life, and justification before Gods very throne as an adopted Son of God.
Jesus, who was divine, made us like Him. Salvation is a free gift we didn't earn. To make it into Heaven we must be transformed. Our sin nature must be removed and we must live in the Spirit of God. Anyone who refuses to be transformed by Gods spirit cannot enter Heaven, because the sin nature will not be allowed in. This is why Christ is the only name by which we can be saved. Hope this helps. God bless.


That is literally nonsense. It doesn't even follow it's own internal logic.

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^peggedbea:
i've never had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a "creator" i understand how one could exist, and the need to believe that one exists and even the desire/importance of pleasing it.
i could never understand the importance of jesus. i'm confused how any of my petty little human sins can cause me to be so abominably filthy in the eyes of my "father" that he needs to have a son and then torture and kill it to make my sins ok. noone has ever been able to offer a satisfactory explaination of jesus's role in the plan of salvation for me.

Well, it's not exactly an easy thing to wrap your mind around. Firstly, if you don't have the spirit it will seem as nonsense. The bible even says this:
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So, there's that. I'll try to make it comprehensible..
In the beginning, man had a perfect relationship with God. Adam and Eve lived in paradise
with God, and He would come and dwell among them as well. God gave them one command, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He told them that if they ate of that fruit they would surely die. To this point, Adam and Eve were immortal and did not know death.
Shortly after, Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the fruit. Satan told them that God was lying, and that He told them to stay away from it because it would make them like God, knowing good and evil. Until this point, Adam and Eve had completely trusted God to take care of their needs. Now, they desired to have His knowledge and make their own judgements about what is good and what is evil. This is what brought about the fall.
They found out quickly that Satan had lied, and that they would die. Their sin had brought death into the world, and it has been inherited by their descendents ever since. This is what is meant by "original sin" They were kicked out of the garden and forced to toil and labor, and their days were numbered from then on.
Now here is the reason Christ came. To break the curse of death, liberate man from his sins, and reconcile him back to God. People focus on the death, but that is only part of it. Since no man had been able to live up to the requirements of Gods law, they had all earned condemnation under the law, which means everyone is guilty and no one is going to Heaven.
Therefore, to make man right with Him, He sent His Son to Earth as a human being. Christ brought His divinity down to Earth, as a man, and lived a perfect life. His sacrifice on the cross was for the atonement of all sins, past present and future. He was only able to do this because He himself had never sinned. He took our place for the punishment we deserve. Meaning, anyone who believes in Christ will have His sins forgiven because Christ already paid the price. This is the purpose of His death, not that God needed to torture someone, but to give all of mankind access to God through Him, through the remission of their sins. His resurrection broke the power of death over man, and guaranteed eternal life for any man who believes in His name.
So, any man, no matter what he has done, what just punishment he has earned..where ever he might be..by faith in the life death and resurrection of Jesus, he has his sins forgiven, a promise of eternal life, and justification before Gods very throne as an adopted Son of God.
Jesus, who is divine, made us like Him. Salvation is a free gift we didn't earn. To make it into Heaven we must be transformed. Our sin nature must be removed and we must live in the Spirit of God. Anyone who refuses to be transformed by Gods spirit cannot enter Heaven, because the sin nature will not be allowed in. This is why Christ is the only name by which we can be saved. Hope this helps. God bless.


So the story of Adam and Eve is not just a myth, and we are all descendants of incestuous sex (twice, if the story of Noah is taken into account)?

So God values blind obedience higher than natural curiosity, and expects Adam and Eve to obey without knowing that disobeying is "bad" (since they don't yet have the knowledge of good/evil)?

So it is moral to punish an infinity of generations of humans for what their ancestors supposedly did? And then present the "gift" of forgiveness if you submit to the god who caused you to be "sinful" in the first place??

You should really watch this short video, which illustrates simply the nonsense and immorality of the whole "atonement" shtick.




Btw, not everything is forgiven by el Heyzeus.

God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.

The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.

Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.

In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.

Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

>> ^shinyblurry:

God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.


I've never understood how christians can think this. Surely if God is omniscient he would know exactly what all his creations would do before he created them, so it was God who started the cycle of sadistic punishment that is life (and death if you believe in Hell and the afterlife). How can he be all loving if he knowingly started this cycle? So your god is either not omniscient or not all loving, take your pick.

Hey I'm an atheist and I think it's possible this is not our only life. It really seems to me like the mind could exist outside the body... like the body is just an antenna of sorts, drawing your seventh-dimensional self down into four dimensions. Anyhow, carry on.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Satan has definitely had his hand in the affairs of the church.
The only reason we know about Satan is because of the bible. If he did author the bible then he is an idiot because even I would know to not mention myself.


And on what basis do you assume that since Satan wrote the bible he didn't call himself God?

>> ^shinyblurry:

God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.


I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.


You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."

Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]

It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.


You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:

God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

* * *

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?


(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)

>> ^shinyblurry:

Something eternal always was, by definition it didn't "get there". It always was there. Something can't come from nothing. Either there was always something, or there couldn't be anything. This points to an Uncasued Cause..ie, an eternal God. Dawkins theory, which is a ridiculous explanation for the Universe appearing designed, just complicates his position expodentially, because then he has to explain infinite Universes instead of just one. Either way, its an infinite chain of causality without a Creator.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.

You didn't resolve how God got there either. You just said he was eternal and you were happy to leave it at that. So why call Dawkins out for doing the same thing? And why should I believe you over him?
(Let's no forget to mention the fact that his idea was a suggestion and yours is what you're basing your whole life around.)

(whistles)



OK, I realize now that you're having ten conversations but this is an important concept to try and grasp: there isn't even a word for how much it complicates things when you bring an eternal god to the table. Exponential doesn't even begin to cover it. For you, I think it appears simple, because you're not going to question the existence of your god. But both explanations appear equally absurd to me. The only difference is that one is grounded in science, and the other in superstition.

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.


Can't speak for others, but I didn't upvote because the video didn't engage me in a way that would cause me to upvote normally. I didn't downvote it either because I didn't hate it.

It's sparked a great discussion, yes.. but I watch videos.. up/down vote them at that time then read the discussion. I don't tie the two together normally.

On average, I no vote videos more often then I put a vote on them.

--edit if that looks like a profile reply, that's because it was supposed to be. D'oh

you say something stupid and whiny and get told it was fucking stupid and whiny .... but its because i have lady bits, not because you're actually just a fucking douche?????

maybe there is a downvote bias and maybe you fucking deserve the persecution you receive.

douchebag.

>> ^shinyblurry:

yeah sure, i still see the bias. lets just see how it goes..on another note, your reproductive system is showing
>> ^peggedbea:
there are a lot of people of faith on the sift, several of them. more than you think apparently. and they're generally well-liked. it probably has a lot to do with them not carrying a cross on their backs and whining that their shitty testimonial sift didnt fair too well in a community that values empirical evidence and logic. there are a lot views because there is a lot of discussion happening and thats attracting people, but what this man said wasn't any good, isn't anything new and astounding, and isn't worthy of an upvote. so the votes are low. you've prompted a great discussion, be grateful and quit taking the fact that a community thats mostly non-religious and values evidence and logic over testimony didn't like what this man had to say.
"if i were more popular people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me"
this is the most irritating thing to me. i have yet to see the downvote bias in action here. but there always seems to be someone carrying around a persecution complex, sifting crappy videos and blaming their low vote totals on some imaginary popularity contest. there isn't a popularity contest. one of the dudes with one of the highest vote ratios i know of has barely left any comments whatsoever and speaks to noone. noone knows who is. "popularity" does not translate into upvotes. nor does it even mean youre necessarily "well-liked" whatever that means since this is, after all, the fucking internet. i'd say the screenname "peggedbea" is fairly well known because ive been pretty vocal and active for years. i have made "internet friends" here, but it certainly doesn't help my videos get sifted. and it doesnt get my comments upvoted. sometimes i say something relevant and people like it, mostly i say something bitchy and people dont read it. its not personal.
and you just called anyone who didn't like what this guy had to say "jerks". thats the point of the sift, if you dont like it.. you downvote it. its not personal. at all. its how the site works.
people not liking this video has more to do with the fact that its lame than it does to do with you personally. this titty baby persecution complex is fucking lame. get over yourself.
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't mean it's rigged..I mean that even though we had a good discussion going and it's popular enough, people withheld their vote or even downvoted because of their opinion on the subject matter..it's not that the subject matter is of no interest, which it obviously is..it's because they disagree with it.
It's also because I am not well liked in the community, for whatever reason..if I was more popular, people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me (6 so far)..I mean this is my first published video..quite a welcome right.
I think this video proves the bias here at the sift..you'd probably be hard pressed to find another video with such high views and comments and few votes. Of course I don't think there is any disagreement there is a bias against theists here..but its worth noting in any case.
I mean here is a video that gets people talking and makes people think, even if they don't agree with it..yet I would probably get into the top 10 instantly if I posted yet another angry atheist railing against God. Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem like it.
>> ^dag:
Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.

yeah yeah, i know the story. i'm just saying it doesn't make any sense. >> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^peggedbea:
i've never had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a "creator" i understand how one could exist, and the need to believe that one exists and even the desire/importance of pleasing it.
i could never understand the importance of jesus. i'm confused how any of my petty little human sins can cause me to be so abominably filthy in the eyes of my "father" that he needs to have a son and then torture and kill it to make my sins ok. noone has ever been able to offer a satisfactory explaination of jesus's role in the plan of salvation for me.

Well, it's not exactly an easy thing to wrap your mind around. Firstly, if you don't have the spirit it will seem as nonsense. The bible even says this:
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So, there's that. I'll try to make it comprehensible..
In the beginning, man had a perfect relationship with God. Adam and Eve lived in paradise
with God, and He would come and dwell among them as well. God gave them one command, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He told them that if they ate of that fruit they would surely die. To this point, Adam and Eve were immortal and did not know death.
Shortly after, Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the fruit. Satan told them that God was lying, and that He told them to stay away from it because it would make them like God, knowing good and evil. Until this point, Adam and Eve had completely trusted God to take care of their needs. Now, they desired to have His knowledge and make their own judgements about what is good and what is evil. This is what brought about the fall.
They found out quickly that Satan had lied, and that they would die. Their sin had brought death into the world, and it has been inherited by their descendents ever since. This is what is meant by "original sin" They were kicked out of the garden and forced to toil and labor, and their days were numbered from then on.
Now here is the reason Christ came. To break the curse of death, liberate man from his sins, and reconcile him back to God. People focus on the death, but that is only part of it. Since no man had been able to live up to the requirements of Gods law, they had all earned condemnation under the law, which means everyone is guilty and no one is going to Heaven.
Therefore, to make man right with Him, He sent His Son to Earth as a human being. Christ brought His divinity down to Earth, as a man, and lived a perfect life. His sacrifice on the cross was for the atonement of all sins, past present and future. He was only able to do this because He himself had never sinned. He took our place for the punishment we deserve. Meaning, anyone who believes in Christ will have His sins forgiven because Christ already paid the price. This is the purpose of His death, not that God needed to torture someone, but to give all of mankind access to God through Him, through the remission of their sins. His resurrection broke the power of death over man, and guaranteed eternal life for any man who believes in His name.
So, any man, no matter what he has done, what just punishment he has earned..where ever he might be..by faith in the life death and resurrection of Jesus, he has his sins forgiven, a promise of eternal life, and justification before Gods very throne as an adopted Son of God.
Jesus, who is divine, made us like Him. Salvation is a free gift we didn't earn. To make it into Heaven we must be transformed. Our sin nature must be removed and we must live in the Spirit of God. Anyone who refuses to be transformed by Gods spirit cannot enter Heaven, because the sin nature will not be allowed in. This is why Christ is the only name by which we can be saved. Hope this helps. God bless.

@shinyblurry
"yeah sure, i still see the bias. lets just see how it goes..on another note, your reproductive system is showing"

your hypocrisy is as evident as a pedophile at a kindergarten picnic.
please...
by all means...
continue teaching us about jesus,sin and salvation while you make snide remarks such as this.
i cannot thank you enough for how thoroughly you amuse me.
you are an absolute treasure trove of contradictions.
and your troll factor is un-matched.
its like you have super powers of hypocrisy!
please dont stop.

you were saying something about adam and eve and their original sin against god which in turn translated them to being separated from god.
please continue to enlighten us all.
you have my undivided attention.....
/listens closely.

Say what? I was just commenting on your avatar..trying to defuse the tension. I didn't mean it that way and I'm sorry if I offended you. I didn't even know if you were female.

>> ^peggedbea:
you say something stupid and whiny and get told it was fucking stupid and whiny .... but its because i have lady bits, not because you're actually just a fucking douche?????
maybe there is a downvote bias and maybe you fucking deserve the persecution you receive.
douchebag.
>> ^shinyblurry:
yeah sure, i still see the bias. lets just see how it goes..on another note, your reproductive system is showing
>> ^peggedbea:
there are a lot of people of faith on the sift, several of them. more than you think apparently. and they're generally well-liked. it probably has a lot to do with them not carrying a cross on their backs and whining that their shitty testimonial sift didnt fair too well in a community that values empirical evidence and logic. there are a lot views because there is a lot of discussion happening and thats attracting people, but what this man said wasn't any good, isn't anything new and astounding, and isn't worthy of an upvote. so the votes are low. you've prompted a great discussion, be grateful and quit taking the fact that a community thats mostly non-religious and values evidence and logic over testimony didn't like what this man had to say.
"if i were more popular people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me"
this is the most irritating thing to me. i have yet to see the downvote bias in action here. but there always seems to be someone carrying around a persecution complex, sifting crappy videos and blaming their low vote totals on some imaginary popularity contest. there isn't a popularity contest. one of the dudes with one of the highest vote ratios i know of has barely left any comments whatsoever and speaks to noone. noone knows who is. "popularity" does not translate into upvotes. nor does it even mean youre necessarily "well-liked" whatever that means since this is, after all, the fucking internet. i'd say the screenname "peggedbea" is fairly well known because ive been pretty vocal and active for years. i have made "internet friends" here, but it certainly doesn't help my videos get sifted. and it doesnt get my comments upvoted. sometimes i say something relevant and people like it, mostly i say something bitchy and people dont read it. its not personal.
and you just called anyone who didn't like what this guy had to say "jerks". thats the point of the sift, if you dont like it.. you downvote it. its not personal. at all. its how the site works.
people not liking this video has more to do with the fact that its lame than it does to do with you personally. this titty baby persecution complex is fucking lame. get over yourself.
>> ^shinyblurry:
I don't mean it's rigged..I mean that even though we had a good discussion going and it's popular enough, people withheld their vote or even downvoted because of their opinion on the subject matter..it's not that the subject matter is of no interest, which it obviously is..it's because they disagree with it.
It's also because I am not well liked in the community, for whatever reason..if I was more popular, people wouldn't be jerks and downvote me (6 so far)..I mean this is my first published video..quite a welcome right.
I think this video proves the bias here at the sift..you'd probably be hard pressed to find another video with such high views and comments and few votes. Of course I don't think there is any disagreement there is a bias against theists here..but its worth noting in any case.
I mean here is a video that gets people talking and makes people think, even if they don't agree with it..yet I would probably get into the top 10 instantly if I posted yet another angry atheist railing against God. Maybe I am wrong but it doesn't seem like it.
>> ^dag:
Ha. "artificially suppressed"? Now I think I'm being trolled. You know how voting works here. It's 100% human - ain't nothing artificial about it. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^dag:
Wow. 96 comments and only 12 net upvotes. That's sort of unusual for around here.

Yeah, I think it's kind of telling..I mean according to the statistics..now 110 comments and 1100 views, it should have easily made it to the top 10, just based on its popularity. It's pretty clear it is being artificially suppressed.

Read my above comment..thanks for the pedophile comparison though..does anyone here have any manners? Or are you just trying to impress the lady with your lack of restraint?

>> ^enoch:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry
"yeah sure, i still see the bias. lets just see how it goes..on another note, your reproductive system is showing"
your hypocrisy is as evident as a pedophile at a kindergarten picnic.
please...
by all means...
continue teaching us about jesus,sin and salvation while you make snide remarks such as this.
i cannot thank you enough for how thoroughly you amuse me.
you are an absolute treasure trove of contradictions.
and your troll factor is un-matched.
its like you have super powers of hypocrisy!
please dont stop.
you were saying something about adam and eve and their original sin against god which in turn translated them to being separated from god.
please continue to enlighten us all.
you have my undivided attention.....
/listens closely.

It makes perfect sense, though I may not be very good at explaining it..instead of just dismissing it all out of hand, why don't you clarify?

>> ^peggedbea:
yeah yeah, i know the story. i'm just saying it doesn't make any sense. >> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^peggedbea:
i've never had a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of a "creator" i understand how one could exist, and the need to believe that one exists and even the desire/importance of pleasing it.
i could never understand the importance of jesus. i'm confused how any of my petty little human sins can cause me to be so abominably filthy in the eyes of my "father" that he needs to have a son and then torture and kill it to make my sins ok. noone has ever been able to offer a satisfactory explaination of jesus's role in the plan of salvation for me.

Well, it's not exactly an easy thing to wrap your mind around. Firstly, if you don't have the spirit it will seem as nonsense. The bible even says this:
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
So, there's that. I'll try to make it comprehensible..
In the beginning, man had a perfect relationship with God. Adam and Eve lived in paradise
with God, and He would come and dwell among them as well. God gave them one command, not to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. He told them that if they ate of that fruit they would surely die. To this point, Adam and Eve were immortal and did not know death.
Shortly after, Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the fruit. Satan told them that God was lying, and that He told them to stay away from it because it would make them like God, knowing good and evil. Until this point, Adam and Eve had completely trusted God to take care of their needs. Now, they desired to have His knowledge and make their own judgements about what is good and what is evil. This is what brought about the fall.
They found out quickly that Satan had lied, and that they would die. Their sin had brought death into the world, and it has been inherited by their descendents ever since. This is what is meant by "original sin" They were kicked out of the garden and forced to toil and labor, and their days were numbered from then on.
Now here is the reason Christ came. To break the curse of death, liberate man from his sins, and reconcile him back to God. People focus on the death, but that is only part of it. Since no man had been able to live up to the requirements of Gods law, they had all earned condemnation under the law, which means everyone is guilty and no one is going to Heaven.
Therefore, to make man right with Him, He sent His Son to Earth as a human being. Christ brought His divinity down to Earth, as a man, and lived a perfect life. His sacrifice on the cross was for the atonement of all sins, past present and future. He was only able to do this because He himself had never sinned. He took our place for the punishment we deserve. Meaning, anyone who believes in Christ will have His sins forgiven because Christ already paid the price. This is the purpose of His death, not that God needed to torture someone, but to give all of mankind access to God through Him, through the remission of their sins. His resurrection broke the power of death over man, and guaranteed eternal life for any man who believes in His name.
So, any man, no matter what he has done, what just punishment he has earned..where ever he might be..by faith in the life death and resurrection of Jesus, he has his sins forgiven, a promise of eternal life, and justification before Gods very throne as an adopted Son of God.
Jesus, who is divine, made us like Him. Salvation is a free gift we didn't earn. To make it into Heaven we must be transformed. Our sin nature must be removed and we must live in the Spirit of God. Anyone who refuses to be transformed by Gods spirit cannot enter Heaven, because the sin nature will not be allowed in. This is why Christ is the only name by which we can be saved. Hope this helps. God bless.

I withheld my vote because it wasn't in * lies. Out of respect for the poster, and because I don't want to start a pissing match, I won't push it into that category, but I will withhold my vote. The discussion got me to not downvote.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Read my above comment..thanks for the pedophile comparison though..does anyone here have any manners? Or are you just trying to impress the lady with your lack of restraint?
<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://videosift.com/video/God-does-exist-Testimony-from-an-ex-atheist?loadcomm=1#comment-1202503'>^enoch</a>:<br />@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry</A><BR>"yeah sure, i still see the bias. lets just see how it goes..on another note, your reproductive system is showing"<BR><BR>your hypocrisy is as evident as a pedophile at a kindergarten picnic.<BR>please...<BR>by all means...<BR>continue teaching us about jesus,sin and salvation while you make snide remarks such as this.<BR>i cannot thank you enough for how thoroughly you amuse me.<BR>you are an absolute treasure trove of contradictions.<BR>and your troll factor is un-matched.<BR>its like you have super powers of hypocrisy!<BR>please dont stop.<BR><BR>you were saying something about adam and eve and their original sin against god which in turn translated them to being separated from god.<BR>please continue to enlighten us all.<BR>you have my undivided attention.....<BR>/listens closely.<BR></em>


you found me out.
cant get nothing by you scooter.
must be them super powers you got.
but please..
go on.
/listens closely

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.

It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.

What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"

John 6;39

And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.

As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.

>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)

NM.. problem's diffused

you all need to stop condescending to shinyblurry,
and please stop with all that "attitude" with the snide comments.
it just comes across as arrogant.
ya'all are being self serving AND self righteous in your "questions" and 'theories" pertaining to the bible.
you have no understanding..have you guys ever even READ the bible?
come on..give shinyblurry a chance to speak.

go on shinyblurry.
you were speaking of "original sin" and how everybody else seems to have gotten that particular question wrong.
heathens...yeesh.pay no attention to them.
your humility concerning your faith shines like a beacon on an antarctic winter day.
/listens closely

>> ^shinyblurry:

It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.


You seem to forget that apparantly your God is all knowing. He knew exactly what Adam and Eve would do, he knew what the serpant would do and he knew what he would do to them and the whole of humanity afterward (Torture a majority of them for eternity). Now maybe as an imperfect mortal I can't understand this strange "love" of his but it seems to me like your god is anything but all loving.

oh for fuck sake, enoch and peggedbea, the fact that you two took such offense to a comment that was glaringly obvious as a joke about your avatar (peggedbea) just shows how damn tightly wound you two are in this discussion (if you could even call it that). Hell, i immediately recognized it for what it was: an ice breaking joke observing the exposed organs of peggedbea's avatar.

This is why i try to stay out of religion talks cuz sooner or later it devolves into a vile mess

ps: shinyblurry, science has, quite conclusively, proven that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old....but thats neither here nor there. You at least recognize that it doesnt matter (as do i), as it pertains ones personal relationship with god.

The bible wasnt written to tell me how old the earth is =)

Downvote for making me do a fucking spit-take while trying to enjoy lunch.

AWESOME music and film editing! TOP NOTCH! Should have been entered in the fucking film festival circuit!! A++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

VOMIT

I also met Zeus. He is real. TOTALLY verifiable! What, you think I'm kidding?

Well, there is argument in theological cicles that has been going about this for centuries about determinalism and how much is actually predestined. For myself, I was an agnostic until I was suddenly given special revelation of Gods existence. I had neither sought it nor even really suspected that God was really real. I found out later that this means I am elected, in that God already knew before He made anything that He would create me here and now for His purposes. So this means my life is predestined.

Some Christians think everyone is elected. I don't, personally. I think He elects some to do specific things for Him, as part of His plan. Now, if this was all predetermined it would really make it all an exercise in futility. There would no point to running the scenerio..why not just get to the results? Why waste time? There are three reasons I think that show we actually do have real choices.

One is just the fact that God offers us choices. If we didn't have the freewill to make them, they wouldn't be choices. Two is that when we are saved God doesn't remember our sins any longer. So to me this means that God doesn't necessarily have to call to mind everything He knows. Perhaps He restrains His foreknowledge so He can create scenerios with real choices. Three is that He does change His mind. For example, He changed His mind about letting Moses enter the promised land. Which means that what we do can change the outcome of what God does. Perhaps creation is a cooperative thing. I couldn't explain it with certainy but these are just some thoughts.


>> ^Ti_Moth:
>> ^shinyblurry:
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.

You seem to forget that apparantly your God is all knowing. He knew exactly what Adam and Eve would do, he knew what the serpant would do and he knew what he would do to them and the whole of humanity afterward (Torture a majority of them for eternity). Now maybe as an imperfect mortal I can't understand this strange "love" of his but it seems to me like your god is anything but all loving.

Usually I would upvote for good discussions, even if i hate the video. This certainly is a long discussion, but I don't think it is a quality discussion, or one which I have drawn any new insights from.

I used to be a devout christian, so I have a soft spot for religious people on the sift. I also have a soft spot for new sifters. But, I think there is a little too much proselytizing, victimology and whining from shiny in this thread, and that put me over the edge into a downvote.

On another note, I was first alarmed when i saw peggedbea's post accusing shiny of a sexist comment. I was ready to flame away at shiny. But after looking at shiny's original comment, I thought it was obvious he was aluding to her avatar.

>> ^Ti_Moth:

>> ^shinyblurry:
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.

You seem to forget that apparantly your God is all knowing. He knew exactly what Adam and Eve would do, he knew what the serpant would do and he knew what he would do to them and the whole of humanity afterward (Torture a majority of them for eternity). Now maybe as an imperfect mortal I can't understand this strange "love" of his but it seems to me like your god is anything but all loving.


well this all depends really on your view or understanding or omniscience. CS Lewis once described it (and now for a butchering paraphrase) that god is all knowing not in a fortune teller sense but in an observational sense. Meaning that god exists outside of any space and time that we can perceive and as such what we observe as past present and future is observed as all present to god. In this way god knows what im gonna eat for breakfast tomorrow, not because he can see the future, but because my future as well as my present and past, is all present to god.

Consider this: in the story of the flood, god is displeased with his creation to the point that he wants a do-over. Now that language used to describe gods regret is explicit in stating that he was so regretful and displeased with how his creation turned out that he had wished he had not created it in the first place (im searching through my old college notes trying to find the Aramaic words used). That being said, if god is all knowing, in the sense that you describe (the fortune teller sense), why would he create his creating knowing that he would regret it to the point that he wish he hadnt created it in the first place? I would suggest to you that gods omniscience is knowing the knowable (knowing the knowable, i know its a bit vague, i could elaborate if you like)

moving to a different topic, the whole god tortures via hell, again that depends on your view of what hell is. The Great Divorce by CS Lewis would be a good read on the subject as would the theology of annihilationism.

many times the tortuous metaphors of hell described in the bible (gnashing of teeth, eternal flames, a thousand deaths, etc etc) are metaphors describing the pain of eternal seperation from the creator, which to me would be exactly what hell is. THese colorful metaphors arent meant to mean a literal, physical eternal torture but a spiritual one. Put in another way, for those of you that have kids or a dearly loved spouse or whatever, one might poetically describe the separation from them as "torture" but this does not mean the literal sense of the word now does it?

The Great Divorce is a great read on the subject

I dunno..I've seen some convincing evidence that the sea floor isn't actually very old and that carbon dating is not as reliable as people make out. Here is an interesting video I found on it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n042X-Fuihg

and yeah..I mean without faith what do you have? If you're using these things to determine your level of belief, then you're missing the whole point

>> ^smooman:
ps: shinyblurry, science has, quite conclusively, proven that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old....but thats neither here nor there. You at least recognize that it doesnt matter (as do i), as it pertains ones personal relationship with god.
The bible wasnt written to tell me how old the earth is =)

>> ^shinyblurry:

Well, there is argument in theological cicles that has been going about this for centuries about determinalism and how much is actually predestined. For myself, I was an agnostic until I was suddenly given special revelation of Gods existence. I had neither sought it nor even really suspected that God was really real. I found out later that this means I am elected, in that God already knew before He made anything that He would create me here and now for His purposes. So this means my life is predestined.
Some Christians think everyone is elected. I don't, personally. I think He elects some to do specific things for Him, as part of His plan. Now, if this was all predetermined it would really make it all an exercise in futility. There would no point to running the scenerio..why not just get to the results? Why waste time? There are three reasons I think that show we actually do have real choices.
One is just the fact that God offers us choices. If we didn't have the freewill to make them, they wouldn't be choices. Two is that when we are saved God doesn't remember our sins any longer. So to me this means that God doesn't necessarily have to call to mind everything He knows. Perhaps He restrains His foreknowledge so He can create scenerios with real choices. Three is that He does change His mind. For example, He changed His mind about letting Moses enter the promised land. Which means that what we do can change the outcome of what God does. Perhaps creation is a cooperative thing. I couldn't explain it with certainy but these are just some thoughts.

>> ^Ti_Moth:
>> ^shinyblurry:
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.

You seem to forget that apparantly your God is all knowing. He knew exactly what Adam and Eve would do, he knew what the serpant would do and he knew what he would do to them and the whole of humanity afterward (Torture a majority of them for eternity). Now maybe as an imperfect mortal I can't understand this strange "love" of his but it seems to me like your god is anything but all loving.



1.Whether we have free will or not is irrelivant your god is all knowing according to christian doctrine what sort of revelation did it take for you to worship this sadistic diety who TORTURES most of an entire species for THE REST OF TIME.
2.How can a being who can see the future (including his own actions) change his mind this seems to me like a massive plot hole in your poorly written holy book.

@Ti_Moth see my above comment mate on gods omniscience

This has much in common with 80's porn - The soft focus lens (smeared with holy Vaseline?), the cheesy music, the improbable story line and the terrible acting punctuating the longer hardcore theological gyrations. I think this would be more effective with Marylin Chambers and John Holmes. "Repent, heathen! On your knees and prepare to receive your new Lord and savior." You could even do a sequel and call it "The Second Cumming." How about a trilogy? "Spare the Rod, Spoil the Twins!"

I don't know. This is just off the top of my head, but I think there is some potential here.

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:

This has much in common with 80's porn - The soft focus lens (smeared with holy Vaseline?), the cheesy music, the improbable story line and the terrible acting punctuating the longer hardcore theological gyrations. I think this would be more effective with Marylin Chambers and John Holmes. Repent, heathen! "On your knees and prepare to receive your new Lord and savior." You could even do a sequel and call it "The Second Cumming."
I don't know. This is just off the top of my head, but I think there is some potential here.


omg youre terrible lol

>> ^smooman:

>> ^Ti_Moth:
>> ^shinyblurry:
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.

You seem to forget that apparantly your God is all knowing. He knew exactly what Adam and Eve would do, he knew what the serpant would do and he knew what he would do to them and the whole of humanity afterward (Torture a majority of them for eternity). Now maybe as an imperfect mortal I can't understand this strange "love" of his but it seems to me like your god is anything but all loving.

well this all depends really on your view or understanding or omniscience. CS Lewis once described it (and now for a butchering paraphrase) that god is all knowing not in a fortune teller sense but in an observational sense. Meaning that god exists outside of any space and time that we can perceive and as such what we observe as past present and future is observed as all present to god. In this way god knows what im gonna eat for breakfast tomorrow, not because he can see the future, but because my future as well as my present and past, is all present to god.
moving to a different topic, the whole god tortures via hell, again that depends on your view of what hell is. The Great Divorce by CS Lewis would be a good read on the subject as would the theology of annihilationism.
many times the tortuous metaphors of hell described in the bible (gnashing of teeth, eternal flames, a thousand deaths, etc etc) are metaphors describing the pain of eternal seperation from the creator, which to me would be exactly what hell is. THese colorful metaphors arent meant to mean a literal, physical eternal torture but a spiritual one. Put in another way, for those of you that have kids or a dearly loved spouse or whatever, one might poetically describe the separation from them as "torture" but this does not mean the literal sense of the word now does it?
The Great Divorce is a great read on the subject


I'm not sure that you can just chop and change the meaning of omniscience. If he isn't truly all knowing then he can't be all powerful as with out the knowledge of something how could he affect it and if there is something he can't affect he isn't all powerful. The torture you describe of seperation from the creator, I feel completly seperated from a creator and I live a fairly happy life that in no way could be described as torture but if this spiritual anguish that I may feel in hell is as bad as torture (even if not as bad as physical torture) then the christian god is still a complete arsehole in my books.

>> ^shinyblurry:

I mean without faith what do you have?
>> ^smooman:
ps: shinyblurry, science has, quite conclusively, proven that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old....but thats neither here nor there. You at least recognize that it doesnt matter (as do i), as it pertains ones personal relationship with god.
The bible wasnt written to tell me how old the earth is =)




Err... Evidence and critical thinking?

>> ^Ti_Moth:

>> ^shinyblurry:
I mean without faith what do you have?
>> ^smooman:
ps: shinyblurry, science has, quite conclusively, proven that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old....but thats neither here nor there. You at least recognize that it doesnt matter (as do i), as it pertains ones personal relationship with god.
The bible wasnt written to tell me how old the earth is =)



Err... Evidence and critical thinking?


while that may be true, they are not mutually exclusive.
faith is the evidence of things unseen (i know thats gonna mean zilch to you so take that with a grain of salt) and i very seriously doubt you could convincingly question the critical thinking skills of persons such as CS Lewis

i dont think atheists (or non christians for that matter) are godless sinners, devoid of any morality, any more than i would hope that you not think me an ignorant, bumbling, neanderthal because im religious

we have different religious views, however this does not make either of us smarter, more critical, or better than the other because of that fact

>> ^smooman:

>> ^Ti_Moth:
>> ^shinyblurry:
I mean without faith what do you have?
>> ^smooman:
ps: shinyblurry, science has, quite conclusively, proven that the earth is approximately 4.5 billion years old....but thats neither here nor there. You at least recognize that it doesnt matter (as do i), as it pertains ones personal relationship with god.
The bible wasnt written to tell me how old the earth is =)



Err... Evidence and critical thinking?

while that may be true, they are not mutually exclusive.
faith is the evidence of things unseen (i know thats gonna mean zilch to you so take that with a grain of salt) and i very seriously doubt you could convincingly question the critical thinking skills of persons such as CS Lewis
i dont think atheists (or non christians for that matter) are godless sinners, devoid of any morality, any more than i would hope that you not think me an ignorant, bumbling, neanderthal because im religious
we have different religious views, however this does not make either of us smarter, more critical, or better than the other because of that fact


My apologies if you thought I was refering to you, my flippant comment was directed at shinyblury and his young earth antics. And I understand faith in principle it just seems that people have faith in whatever is the nearest religion at the time of their spiritual awakening, I mean if you were living a few thousand years ago you may well have had faith in Thor or Zeus and thats all well and good but what if Mighty Ra and his family of gods are the correct thing to have faith in? You would be missing out on Vallhalla...

none taken =)
generally speaking there seems to be a consensus that people of religious persuasion are devoid of any discernible logic, reasoning, and critical thinking skills. As a man of religious persuasion and one who takes pride in my ability to think critically, i take offense to that idea (not that you, specifically, share that idea. Although you may. i dont really know you but i would hope you dont)

conversely, generally speaking there seems to be a consensus that people without religion are devoid of any real morality and unable to discern truth. I imagine any atheist here (some ive had the pleasure of having wonderful debates with) would take offense to that idea as well.

now, i cant speak for shiny, or anyone else for that matter, but i can assure you that my faith/religious beliefs/theologies are things that ive come to through many many years of questioning and critique and believe me, its an ongoing process.

The only difference between, say, me and you, would be that my critique led me one way, yours led you another way.

........but im way more awesome, but thats another debate =P

ps: valhalla isnt viking heaven (or hell)
its more closely compared to a kind of purgatory
........but whatever

>> ^Ryjkyj:

>> ^shinyblurry:
Something eternal always was, by definition it didn't "get there". It always was there. Something can't come from nothing. Either there was always something, or there couldn't be anything. This points to an Uncasued Cause..ie, an eternal God. Dawkins theory, which is a ridiculous explanation for the Universe appearing designed, just complicates his position expodentially, because then he has to explain infinite Universes instead of just one. Either way, its an infinite chain of causality without a Creator.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.

You didn't resolve how God got there either. You just said he was eternal and you were happy to leave it at that. So why call Dawkins out for doing the same thing? And why should I believe you over him?
(Let's no forget to mention the fact that his idea was a suggestion and yours is what you're basing your whole life around.)

(whistles)


OK, I realize now that you're having ten conversations but this is an important concept to try and grasp: there isn't even a word for how much it complicates things when you bring an eternal god to the table. Exponential doesn't even begin to cover it. For you, I think it appears simple, because you're not going to question the existence of your god. But both explanations appear equally absurd to me. The only difference is that one is grounded in science, and the other in superstition.

>> ^smooman:

ps: valhalla isnt viking heaven (or hell)
its more closely compared to a kind of purgatory
........but whatever


Damn! My lack of knowledge on norse mythology lets me down once again : P . Beleive me when I say I don't think you lack critical thinking skills but surely you must agree that a suspension of critical thinking is required to make that leap of faith to believe any particular religion. That is the one of the main reason why I can't pitch my tent in the camp of any religion. ( I'm a polytheistic agnostic by the way seems like the safest bet).

>> ^Ti_Moth:

>> ^smooman:
ps: valhalla isnt viking heaven (or hell)
its more closely compared to a kind of purgatory
........but whatever

Damn! My lack of knowledge on norse mythology lets me down once again : P . Beleive me when I say I don't think you lack critical thinking skills but surely you must agree that a suspension of critical thinking is required to make that leap of faith to believe any particular religion. That is the one of the main reason why I can't pitch my tent in the camp of any religion. ( I'm a polytheistic agnostic by the way seems like the safest bet).


not necessarily. I know ive been name dropping him a lot but, CS Lewis more or less reasoned himself into believing in god as did Tolkien i believe (not sure about the latter). he wrote a book about it i believe but i'd have to check

Thank you for bringing CS Lewis up..because I have been meaning to check out some of his work. I have read the Screwtape letters, but that's about it. Pretty sad, I know. I am definitely going to check out your recommendations.

It's mind boggling to try to perceive something from an eternal perspective..someone told me that he saw all of time like a flower in bloom, from the top down perspective..

Omniscience as knowing the knowable..that's a pretty good way of thinking about it. Perhaps that is where free will comes into play..and as far as hell..just the very basic definition of being spiritually seperated from God forever..that would be the worst torture possible..so the descriptions could be seen from that perspective as metaphorical..interesting stuff

>> ^smooman:
>> ^Ti_Moth:
>> ^shinyblurry:
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.

You seem to forget that apparantly your God is all knowing. He knew exactly what Adam and Eve would do, he knew what the serpant would do and he knew what he would do to them and the whole of humanity afterward (Torture a majority of them for eternity). Now maybe as an imperfect mortal I can't understand this strange "love" of his but it seems to me like your god is anything but all loving.

well this all depends really on your view or understanding or omniscience. CS Lewis once described it (and now for a butchering paraphrase) that god is all knowing not in a fortune teller sense but in an observational sense. Meaning that god exists outside of any space and time that we can perceive and as such what we observe as past present and future is observed as all present to god. In this way god knows what im gonna eat for breakfast tomorrow, not because he can see the future, but because my future as well as my present and past, is all present to god.
Consider this: in the story of the flood, god is displeased with his creation to the point that he wants a do-over. Now that language used to describe gods regret is explicit in stating that he was so regretful and displeased with how his creation turned out that he had wished he had not created it in the first place (im searching through my old college notes trying to find the Aramaic words used). That being said, if god is all knowing, in the sense that you describe (the fortune teller sense), why would he create his creating knowing that he would regret it to the point that he wish he hadnt created it in the first place? I would suggest to you that gods omniscience is knowing the knowable (knowing the knowable, i know its a bit vague, i could elaborate if you like)
moving to a different topic, the whole god tortures via hell, again that depends on your view of what hell is. The Great Divorce by CS Lewis would be a good read on the subject as would the theology of annihilationism.
many times the tortuous metaphors of hell described in the bible (gnashing of teeth, eternal flames, a thousand deaths, etc etc) are metaphors describing the pain of eternal seperation from the creator, which to me would be exactly what hell is. THese colorful metaphors arent meant to mean a literal, physical eternal torture but a spiritual one. Put in another way, for those of you that have kids or a dearly loved spouse or whatever, one might poetically describe the separation from them as "torture" but this does not mean the literal sense of the word now does it?
The Great Divorce is a great read on the subject

Let me put it this way, the way I see it every god is as likely to exist as any other god or gods seeing as there is no empirical evidence pointing specifically to one or other. Without some sort of personal revelation I can't see how I could make the leap to Allah or Yahweh or Baal or the Hindu gods or scrap any notion of spiritual belief altogether. I would also be very interested to read this CS Lewis essay that you seem so taken with if you could provide a link.

ive been searching for online sources myself. theres a few places you can find excerpts in pdf format but his full essays are hard to find online. but, his books are pretty inexpensive and you can find em at any bookstore, and if you can afford a lil extra there is a collection of his thats around 60 bucks i think that has all of his theological books and another collection that has most of his essays thats around 30 bucks

@shinyblurry, the great divorce is a poignant look at the relationship between the "saved" and "unsaved" in the afterlife. He tells an allegory of a bus ride the residents of hell get to take to heaven where they get to hang out for the day. At the end of the day they can stay if they want but all of em choose to get back on the bus. An interesting look into that choice and what makes them choose instead of just retelling the eternal punishment of a jerkoff god motif

So this bizarre interpertation wasn't really a vehicle to share religious porn titles you've sat around and dreamt up in your spare time? Okay, turn about is fair play..

Richard Dawkings, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris in The Big Bang
The Flying Spaghetti Monster in Oodles of Noodles
Julia Sweeney and Eddie Izzard in ewwwwww

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
This has much in common with 80's porn - The soft focus lens (smeared with holy Vaseline?), the cheesy music, the improbable story line and the terrible acting punctuating the longer hardcore theological gyrations. I think this would be more effective with Marylin Chambers and John Holmes. "Repent, heathen! On your knees and prepare to receive your new Lord and savior." You could even do a sequel and call it "The Second Cumming." How about a trilogy? "Spare the Rod, Spoil the Twins!"
I don't know. This is just off the top of my head, but I think there is some potential here.

Why? It makes logical sense. If there wasn't always something there, that means at some point there was nothing there. So without anything eternal you have to believe that something came from nothing. Then you have the chain of casuality..in which every link of the chain you have to ask, how did that get there then? Without something eternal you must do this infinitely. An eternal first cause is the only choice that makes logical sense..and going back to the earlier discussion, it also explains why the Universe appears designed even to dawkins..because it is!

>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Something eternal always was, by definition it didn't "get there". It always was there. Something can't come from nothing. Either there was always something, or there couldn't be anything. This points to an Uncasued Cause..ie, an eternal God. Dawkins theory, which is a ridiculous explanation for the Universe appearing designed, just complicates his position expodentially, because then he has to explain infinite Universes instead of just one. Either way, its an infinite chain of causality without a Creator.
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Even dawkins admitted that the Universe appeared to be designed. His explanation? In the God delusion he explains this by saying that perhaps there are infinite Univeses and we just happen to be in the one that appears designed. Pretty powerful stuff. He also doesn't resolve how infinite Universes got there either.

You didn't resolve how God got there either. You just said he was eternal and you were happy to leave it at that. So why call Dawkins out for doing the same thing? And why should I believe you over him?
(Let's no forget to mention the fact that his idea was a suggestion and yours is what you're basing your whole life around.)

(whistles)


OK, I realize now that you're having ten conversations but this is an important concept to try and grasp: there isn't even a word for how much it complicates things when you bring an eternal god to the table. Exponential doesn't even begin to cover it. For you, I think it appears simple, because you're not going to question the existence of your god. But both explanations appear equally absurd to me. The only difference is that one is grounded in science, and the other in superstition.

Shiny,

The universe can be eternal without there being a God.

Good stuff.

I don't really even have to make stuff up. There is so much perverted goodness in Christian mythology. Lot and his daughters, David and Bathsheba and Onan would all make great porn stories. Although, in general, God seems to prefer snuff to erotica. >> ^shinyblurry:

So this bizarre interpertation wasn't really a vehicle to share religious porn titles you've sat around and dreamt up in your spare time? Okay, turn about is fair play..
Richard Dawkings, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris in The Big Bang
The Flying Spaghetti Monster in Oodles of Noodles
Julia Sweeney and Eddie Izzard in ewwwwww
>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
This has much in common with 80's porn - The soft focus lens (smeared with holy Vaseline?), the cheesy music, the improbable story line and the terrible acting punctuating the longer hardcore theological gyrations. I think this would be more effective with Marylin Chambers and John Holmes. "Repent, heathen! On your knees and prepare to receive your new Lord and savior." You could even do a sequel and call it "The Second Cumming." How about a trilogy? "Spare the Rod, Spoil the Twins!"
I don't know. This is just off the top of my head, but I think there is some potential here.

>> ^Ryjkyj:
Shiny,
The universe can be eternal without there being a God.


This is actually what science used to think. It's called the steady state theory, in which the Universe has no beginning or end. Scientists and other skeptics used to point to this theory as ruling out the possibility of a Creator. After Edwin Hubble discovered the Universe is expanding scientists realized the Universe did have a beginning and thus is not eternal. Now this is what is interesting.

In the entire recorded history of humanity, the judeo-christian belief alone is unique in proposing a creation from nothing. One of the discoverers of the cosmic microwave background radiation (which is evidence for the big bang) said this..

"Certainly, if you are religious, I can't think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis"

Just as the bible says, and science confirms thousands of years later, the Universe was created from nothing. Makes you think, doesn't it?

>> ^shinyblurry:

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.
What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"
John 6;39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.
>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)



Since you continuously miss the subtleties of my critiques while avoiding the actual questions that are being posed, I will spell it out as simply as I can. (Note that my intellectual condescension, which you are right in spotting, is based entirely on your unintelligent responses and childish emotional reactions, your disregard for logic, your circular reasoning and your incessant ad hominem attacks. But please, don't let my "nasty and sarcastic attitude" get in the way of your reasoned and logical argumentation... for which we are still waiting.)


1. On the literal reading of Scripture: My question as to whether you took the Adam/Eve/Eden myth as factual and historical truth is crucial, and since you continued to base your argumentation on the assumption that it is, I followed up with questions pertaining to other literal readings of the Bible, i.e. YEC, geocentrism and flat earth theory. In later comments you dance around the issue of the Earth's age, but refuse to address one of my first questions: is all humanity the actual descendants of the fabled Adam and Eve? If not, the whole theory of original sin crumbles. You might argue, as the begrudgingly-evolution-accepting catholic church does, that "original sin" is equivalent to "human nature", which completely voids the whole "created in His image" and "free will" things.

2. On hypocrisy and cherry-picking: I wish I could say how surprised I am at you being oblivious to your hypocrisy and self-contradiction, but it is all too common among religious apologists. You accuse me of "narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant" interpretation, of arrogance, ignorance and condescension (I fully own up to that last one), and in the very same lines are guilty of all of the above. What makes your interpretation correct, and mine - which is based directly on the actual text - incorrect? Oh yes, your dogma, which declares that there is only one correct reading of the Bible, i.e. the Christian one, no matter how contrary to the text it is. You assume that any one who contradicts your creed with the help of your holy book "has no understanding" of it... and I'm the arrogant one? I could be a theology major for all you know, and while I am not, I have read the Bible thoroughly enough to know it for what it is: a collection of myths, romanticised history, laws and poetry, written by men.

Concerning the "blasphemy challenge", if I understand your reasoning cherry-picking logic, there is no need to believe in God, the Bible or any Christian creed, since we're all going to heaven anyway, right? But then, in a later comment you proclaim that only some are chosen ("many are called..." I know). What happens to those who are not and, more importantly, how will you get out of that without contradicting yourself?

3. Please do not skirt the questions: note that the "answers" to my earliest questions, repeated here, were unintelligible due to your use of terms (see below) which need clarification.

>>"So the story of Adam and Eve is not just a myth, and we are all descendants of incestuous sex (twice, if the story of Noah is taken into account)?

So God values blind obedience higher than natural curiosity, and expects Adam and Eve to obey without knowing that disobeying is "bad" (since they don't yet have the knowledge of good/evil)?

So it is moral to punish an infinity of generations of humans for what their ancestors supposedly did? And then present the "gift" of forgiveness if you submit to the god who caused you to be "sinful" in the first place??"


>>"You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:

God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit."

@hpqp

Fine fine, you're the big bad intellectual and I am the intellectual cripple. Yet, if you're wrong, I would say the situation is more the reverse. But you're entitled to your wild conjecture, fevered ego and primitive stereotypes. I'll answer your questions:

1. Yes, I do believe that Adam and Eve are historical figures.

2. Special Revelation and no, you didn't understand. It states that all those He was given by the Father He will not lose. Therefore, anyone who is saved is always saved. If you reject the Holy Spirit you are not saved, therefore you were never a Christian in the first place.

3 If you're so much more intelligent than I am, why is it you're having trouble grasping this simple concept? Though Adam and Eve did not yet have the knowledge of good and evil, they were informed by God directly that it was bad to disobey him and there would be consequences. God imparted his knowledge of good and evil to them, on that circumstance, so they had the free choice.

God didn't seperate himself from man, man seperated himself from God. Instead of starting over, God went through all of this, even sent His Son to die for us, to reconcile us back to Him so we could again live together in paradise. All of this is for our benefit, and if some people prefer death to life, God isn't going to reprogram them to change their minds. He doesn't coerce love, He doesn't do evil. He gives man the choice to seek Him out or not. He shows them plainly that He is there. If they want to ignore Him and break all His rules and be seperated from Him forever, that's their choice. That's what hell actually is. Seperation from God. It's the worst punishment anyone could ever receive.

>> ^shinyblurry:

>> ^Ryjkyj:
Shiny,
The universe can be eternal without there being a God.

This is actually what science used to think. It's called the steady state theory, in which the Universe has no beginning or end. Scientists and other skeptics used to point to this theory as ruling out the possibility of a Creator. After Edwin Hubble discovered the Universe is expanding scientists realized the Universe did have a beginning and thus is not eternal. Now this is what is interesting.
In the entire recorded history of humanity, the judeo-christian belief alone is unique in proposing a creation from nothing. One of the discoverers of the cosmic microwave background radiation (which is evidence for the big bang) said this..
"Certainly, if you are religious, I can't think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis"
Just as the bible says, and science confirms thousands of years later, the Universe was created from nothing. Makes you think, doesn't it?


If the universe came from god, then it didn't come from nothing as the bible says, it came from god. It's interesting to me that you would prove the bible wrong yourself and not notice that. Unless god is nothing?

Either way (and completely separate), the big bang theory only states that the current shape of the universe was caused by a particular formation or event. It does not purport to know anything about the universe before a certain point where physics break down. And it certainly does not say that the universe popped into existence from nothing.

It just means that we cannot say, scientifically, what happened in our observable universe before a certain point. But since the Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest, I'm surprised you would use it in conjunction with your beliefs to help illuminate the existence of a creator.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Do you wear a cologne called attitude? You could bottle the sneer dripping from your words and sell it for a tidy sum. Though it doesn't surprise me that you're actually advocating for Satan in the story, it was a lie no matter how narrow, obtuse, and willfully ignorant your interpertation is. They did die, that makes it a lie. God told them the truth about it.
It was not their lack of knowledge that made them "inferior", it was their faith in God that made them superior. Yet, God gave them the choice didn't He? Your argument here is null and void. He enjoyed a perfect relationship with them but He gave them the choice of knowing anyway. He warned them if they did it they would die. They chose not to trust God and lusted after his power, and then they reaped the consequences, which was seperation from God. It's the same story going on on Earth, right now, in every heart that has turned away from God. What He did, and is still doing, is fair and just. He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do, and He even gives you fair warning.
What's absurd is your nasty and sarcastic attitude. It's just pure arrogance; have you ever read the bible? You're here railing against something you have no understanding of. You're condescending to me about my intellect when even a child has a more cohesive understanding here than you do. Btw, regarding the ridiculous "blasphemy challenge"
John 6;39
And this is the will of him who sent me, that I shall lose none of all that he has given me, but raise them up at the last day.
As far as whether the Earth is old or young, I don't know. It isn't clear. I've seen models where the geology of the planet could be explained by a young Earth, and ones that dispute it. I don't really care, to tell you the truth. It makes no difference to me whether the Earth is young or old. Science hasn't proved it either way, and the bible isn't exactly clear on it, so there isn't a way for me to say definitively. To me the jury is out and it doesn't look like it will be back anytime soon. What is important to me is a relationship with Jesus Christ, not how old His creation is.
>> ^hpqp:
>> ^shinyblurry:
God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did. They chose to believe the lie instead, and lusted after Gods power. Thus they sinned and became spiritually seperated from God. The perfect cannot be joined with the imperfect.
The whole point of our lives is to love God (and eachother) and live with Him forever in paradise. That's why He created Adam and Eve in the first place. Man sinned and fell, became seperated from God, and became mortal and lost their place with God.
Your argument is that it is immoral. Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one? It's only your excuse for not doing what He told us to do. God is Holy, but you have believed the lie that He isn't. You are choosing death over life, because that is all sin is. The soul that sins is the soul that dies, but Gods gift is eternal life.
In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.
Everyone who has taken the so-called blasphemy challenge just to please their inner demons of being completely dead to Christ are mistaken. None of them have done anything unforgivable and can all still be saved.

I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.
You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.
You use a lot of religious terms as if they actually meant something. Please define these if you want your argumentation to be the least bit intelligible:
God; sin; moral (in relation to "God"), God's spirit.

Since you did not address the incest remark while continuing to speak of Adam and Eve as if they really existed, I'll assume that you really do think we all descend from only two humans, which is totally absurd. Do you also think the Earth is only 6000 years old? Perhaps the Sun revolves around it (Eccl.1:5)? And is it a flat disc (Is.40:22)?
(Btw, most of those who took the "blasphemy challenge" grew up Christian, so no, imaginary Sky-Daddy cannot forgive them)



http://youtu.be/5hfYJsQAhl0

*edit:damn,embed wont work.well so much for me making a funny!now my day is just ruined..RUINED i tell ya!

Ryjkyj..that's not what I said, or meant. Created from nothing, meaning there was no material that was used. Ie, it was willed into existence.

and it's not that physics breaks down..time and space had a beginning there..without them you don't have any physics. It all goes back to a singularity. I didn't know that a catholic priest proposed the theory, but I don't really see why that's relevant. It points to a beginning, that is what is important. >> ^Ryjkyj:
>> ^shinyblurry:
>> ^Ryjkyj:
Shiny,
The universe can be eternal without there being a God.

This is actually what science used to think. It's called the steady state theory, in which the Universe has no beginning or end. Scientists and other skeptics used to point to this theory as ruling out the possibility of a Creator. After Edwin Hubble discovered the Universe is expanding scientists realized the Universe did have a beginning and thus is not eternal. Now this is what is interesting.
In the entire recorded history of humanity, the judeo-christian belief alone is unique in proposing a creation from nothing. One of the discoverers of the cosmic microwave background radiation (which is evidence for the big bang) said this..
"Certainly, if you are religious, I can't think of a better theory of the origin of the universe to match with Genesis"
Just as the bible says, and science confirms thousands of years later, the Universe was created from nothing. Makes you think, doesn't it?

If the universe came from god, then it didn't come from nothing as the bible says, it came from god. It's interesting to me that you would prove the bible wrong yourself and not notice that. Unless god is nothing?
Either way (and completely separate), the big bang theory only states that the current shape of the universe was caused by a particular formation or event. It does not purport to know anything about the universe before a certain point where physics break down. And it certainly does not say that the universe popped into existence from nothing.
It just means that we cannot say, scientifically, what happened in our observable universe before a certain point. But since the Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Catholic priest, I'm surprised you would use it in conjunction with your beliefs to help illuminate the existence of a creator.

While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...

1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?

No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.


>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?

>> ^shinyblurry:
No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.
>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?



edit wtf is with this sites editor

>> ^shinyblurry:

No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. No, I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.

>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?



ok.
so the pentacostals are out /scratches them off the list.
as is the book of john../more scratching.
any other books i should dismiss?

@shinyblurry



(Thanks enoch, I couldn't have said it better myself!)

I disagree. I think you are confusing faith with deduction and inference, which is always incredibly annoying when people talk about how atheists require faith. No, all we require is evidence!

We can infer from available evidence, for instance, that the Big Bang happened, or that dark matter is likely to exist because of other observations and EVIDENCE that it does. The math involved in the physical universe doesn't quite work out without it, despite the fact that we cannot see it. This is, of course, a theory (an actual, scientific type theory), but a theory that makes sense based on the best, current, available EVIDENCE. Similarly, we once inferred that God existed because we did not have the knowledge, nor the tools with which to examine our world with anywhere close to the fidelity that we are able to today, and now we are able to throw out the God hypothesis in almost every discipline of study.

Faith, conversely, requires that you not have evidence and just believe in something without proof, or upon someone's word. Perhaps I did not take enough salt with your statement, but faith is certainly not the evidence of anything, let alone "the unseen". Evidence of the unseen, would still be evidence from which we can deduce a conclusion. If you have evidence, you are no longer faithful, you are simply informed. And as of now, there is no actual evidence outside of anecdotes like this video, the Bible itself, and emotional appeals - which are easily dismissed as not credible - for a deity.

The problem with God is that He's just plugged into areas where we don't know things, and people take it upon faith that He's real, even in areas where there is more than enough real, tangible evidence to contradict a need for a deity. That is why secularists get so irritated at young Earth creationists and the like, where a preponderance of repeatable, testable, falsifiable, and verifiable evidence shows how enormously wrong they are, yet they refuse to believe the evidence itself, because it goes against their faith in what they believe to be true. A person might have all of the intellect and powers of critical thinking in the world, but when someone takes something on faith, they abandon those powers to plug in a simple answer for whatever their personal reasons.

I don't know your story, or how you feel you've rationalized yourself into belief, whether it be through some sort of Pascal's Wager thing, or what, and I certainly don't think you are an "ignorant, bumbling Neanderthal" but to accept any of an infinite number of god possibilities, let alone the specific Abrahamic God requires faith, and an absence of logic in the absence of real evidence.

Sorry, I went on a rant there...>> ^smooman:


while that may be true, they are not mutually exclusive.
faith is the evidence of things unseen (i know thats gonna mean zilch to you so take that with a grain of salt) and i very seriously doubt you could convincingly question the critical thinking skills of persons such as CS Lewis
i dont think atheists (or non christians for that matter) are godless sinners, devoid of any morality, any more than i would hope that you not think me an ignorant, bumbling, neanderthal because im religious
we have different religious views, however this does not make either of us smarter, more critical, or better than the other because of that fact

Is there a point where you're actually going to contribute something to the conversation, or are you just going to stay in the peanut gallery and snipe at me?

No one is out. Just because different Christians believe different things doesn't make them unchristian. Misled, perhaps, but anyone who believes on Christ is saved. Personally, I am non-denominational.

How is the book of John ruled out? What on earth are you talking about? The passages referring to what people call the rapture could be interperted a few different ways..I accept them, I just read them differently.

Look, it's clear you don't know anything about scripture. Why don't you do some research before you toss around these ignorant statements.

>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. No, I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.
>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?


ok.
so the pentacostals are out /scratches them off the list.
as is the book of john../more scratching.
any other books i should dismiss?

I agree with your statement, you probably couldn't have. I also guess the irony of the video escapes you.

>> ^hpqp:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry

(Thanks enoch, I couldn't have said it better myself!)

Wrong answer Shiny. You're supposed to say that God IS nothing... and EVERYTHING. (big booming voice) THE ALPHA AND THE OMEGA!!!

Sorry, I had to make that joke.

And I'm sorry I misunderstood. But you did say literally that, "the universe was created from nothing". But we're still left with the idea that either the universe just popped into existence, has always existed or was created by something that has always existed. Now, the first two of those options are suggestions, even where Dawkins is concerned. The third however, you're positing as fact. All three seem just as irrational as any other. In fact, when I think about it, the third sounds just a little more unlikely considering that the first two include only one element: the universe, which we can see. And the other involves two, the universe we can see and an immortal god that we can't.

And I'd just like to clarify: it IS that physics breaks down right before the theoretical singularity. We don't know that time and space didn't exist before then because we can't describe what was going on based on observation. For all we know, they did exist, but that's the point, we don't know. At this point it's all just a guess. And that includes, by the way, whether or not the universe began there. It certainly might have, but it just as certainly might not have. Or it might (oh no, here we go again) NOT be the only universe out there.

Oh, and I only mentioned Georges Lemaitre because of what you said earlier about satan having his hand in the affairs of the church. But he was a scientist too, so I understand if you use his theory to back up your own.

>> ^shinyblurry:

No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.

>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?


Thanks for answering my question.

@shinyblurry

I was going to leave you in the metaphorical pit of self-contradiction and nonsense you had dug yourself into, but then you had to go insult my eloquence... jk, I was going to address your answers anyway:


1. Assuming that your belief in Adam and Eve as historical figures implicitly includes your acceptance of the ridiculous notion that all humankind descends from two individuals and their incestuous offspring, can you explain why a supposedly all-benevolent being would not only punish the two who disobeyed him, but all their children for generations on end? What did they do wrong?

You say: Well how can you judge God? No sinner could and I include myself in that. How could an immoral being judge a moral one?
Would you condemn and punish someone's child for something their parents did? Why should anyone respect - much less worship - a being whose moral standards are far inferior to those of the worst among us humans (or "sinners" as you call us)?


2. "Special Revelation"... and yet it is those who use reason and evidence who are "arrogant", or have a "fevered ego", right? But let me try to grasp this "Holy Spirit" thing once and for all:

You say: In regard to the unforgivable sin, the reason it is unforgivable is because when you become a Christian you receive Gods Spirit. His Spirit is what transforms us, makes us a new creation. If you reject His Spirit, you cannot be transformed, so therefore you cannot be forgiven.

But you also say: anyone who is saved is always saved. If you reject the Holy Spirit you are not saved, therefore you were never a Christian in the first place.

Basically, a Christian cannot deny the HS, otherwise he was never a Christian? But one can only reject the HS if they have it, i.e. if they are a Christian... do you see where this is going? Moreover, this suggests a deterministic outlook: some have been chosen, the rest can suck it (you did not answer the part of my question which asks what happens to those that are not "chosen").


3. You say:Though Adam and Eve did not yet have the knowledge of good and evil, they were informed by God directly that it was bad to disobey him and there would be consequences. God imparted his knowledge of good and evil to them, on that circumstance, so they had the free choice.

So God makes an exception, giving them the knowledge of good and evil only so that they do not obtain the knowledge of good and evil... Even if this fantastic extrapolation of yours was not a direct insult to the textual integrity of the Bible (which is about the only integrity that thing has got), it would only confirm my point vis-à-vis God/religion's reliance on blind obedience.

Which brings me to another tasty tidbit of yours:

He doesn't coerce your love, but he will let you reap the consequences of the evil that you do [...]
Mafia boss says: you don't have to pay up, but I'll beat the shit out of you if you don't.



Does the irony escape you?


I am looking forward to your next copy-pasted patchwork of apologetic gymnastics.

1. You're still not getting it. Before Adam and Eve sinned, they were spiritually perfected. When they sinned their spirit became corrupt and could no longer be in the presence of God. This is why Creation fell. Human nature has been corrupted since then. This is why we live in a fallen world. Instead of starting over, God bore all of this out with us. He had a plan to restore Creation, which He did by sending His Son to die for our sins. Jesus is the name under which man is reconciled back to God and spiritually perfected, so we can again live with God. It's not about punishment, it's about restoration.

You say it's immoral for God to punish people..I'll explain why it's not but first, lets examine your hypocripsy here. You're an atheist so you believe death is the end. Yet, I bet you adovocate the death penalty or life in prison for serious crimes. You're perfectly fine with humans meting out ultimate justice on other humans, which is the same as God punishing someone forever, because if this life is all we have then a death sentence is forever. Life in prison is just as good. Yet, you somehow have a problem with God punishing people, who as our Creator and the moral authority not only has the perrogative, but indeed would be immoral if He didn't do so.

Think about it this way. You don't like God and you don't respect His authority. You certainly don't want to live forever with Him. So, though He loves you and wants to share eternity with you, He will allow you to make your choice as to whether to love Him or not. He's let you know the consequences over and over again, mostly recently through this dialogue. You are choosing directly to be seperated from God, indeed you have made it a mission to spread your ignorance about Him. So why then should you be surprised when you earn the reward you had hoped for? It's entirely moral, and entirely your choice.

2. It doesn't suggest anything of the sort. Only a Christian could receive the Holy Spirit, they are saved. A person who professes a belief in Christ yet does not accept His Spirit has committed blasphemy against the Spirit. They are not saved. A person who does not believe in Christ will never receive the Spirit, nor can they even perceive it, so they cannot commit blasphemy against Him. This is the meaning of the passage:

"Not everyone who says to Me, `Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 "Many will say to Me on that day, `Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' 23 "And then I will declare to them, `I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS."

3. What was your question?

Btw, I don't delve into apologetics. Not knowing anything about apologetics, I can see why you've made this mistake. This is entirely from my own understanding.

>> ^shinyblurry:

Is there a point where you're actually going to contribute something to the conversation, or are you just going to stay in the peanut gallery and snipe at me?
No one is out. Just because different Christians believe different things doesn't make them unchristian. Misled, perhaps, but anyone who believes on Christ is saved. Personally, I am non-denominational.
How is the book of John ruled out? What on earth are you talking about? The passages referring to what people call the rapture could be interperted a few different ways..I accept them, I just read them differently.
Look, it's clear you don't know anything about scripture. Why don't you do some research before you toss around these ignorant statements.
>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. No, I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.
>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?


ok.
so the pentacostals are out /scratches them off the list.
as is the book of john../more scratching.
any other books i should dismiss?



i am just following the conversation brother.
listening to your witness and taking notes.
so dont dismiss the books but allow for interpretation../check.
read more scripture../check

let me ask you a question.
since you feel im "sniping" from the peanut gallery.( i was being a snark..but snipe is nicer)
if you do not believe in the rapture and find it non-doctrinal,would you consider yourself to be a preterist?
do you consider yourself from ecclestiassitcal,calvinism or maybe even of a arminianism theosophical school of thought?
and if ecclestiassical..how have you resolved the issue of the nicean creed?
another i am curious as to how you may have resolved is zoroastrianism.
how have you been able to separate the seemingly identical stories from both the bible and this pre-christian religion?
i mean one could come to the conclusion that monotheism was actually born from this religion which was influential in judaism and christianity.
reading zarathustra's sermons one may find some close similarities to many of the earliest books of the bible.
or the story of gilgamesh and its seemingly identical recitation of noah,even though gilgamesh was centuries before noah.
how did you rationalize that particular conundrum?
one last question.
since you are christian,as am i,i am extremely curious how you were able to resolve the issue of the resurrection deities:
krishna,osiris,dionysus,mithra.
all were have purported to be the son of god.
to have began their ministry at an early age.
performed miracles.
persecuted and then executed.
dead for three days.
and on the third day were all resurrected.

what about the female resurrection deities?
ishtar and persephone?
they have similar stories too!

i am curious how you dealt with these particular theological dilemmas.

These are most excellent question(s)..I am happy to answer it..i will get back to you with all the facts, I will answer it in full but first I will just say that there is a massive amount of deception out there. Especially in these cases..a lot of half truths that people accept as whole ones. Not one of them bears any validity. The facts never hold up in these cases, and I mean 0 bears any true refutation of the facts. This world is fallen and mankinds new strategy is to try to forget about Him or write Him out..I will only say Forgive them Lord, they know not what they do. People believe they don't need God. They don't know they commit spiritual suicide. This fantasy world they dream up to replace Him is so ridiculous..It's been compared to disneyland. We are just drowning in existential bullshit. Primitive tribalism. Barbarianism. Extreme vanity and pride. No mercy, no forgiveness. In their coldness, people believe these lies because they have not much imagination of anything truly good and its always as good as who you really are. I find the truth is always accurate in situations like these. It is measured according to what it really is, and the well is poisoned by any lack of character, no matter how slight, because God is perfect. People aren't getting away with anything. God knows their hearts better than they do. If you're not good you won't know about it, you just couldn't imagine it really. And the bible says none of us are good. So we have to seek God. we are intolerant useless greedy selfish..there are just some of the synomyms i can think of..Peter Gabriels Big Time seems relevent..And some of them are Christians who are just sort of taking on the mantle for curtural reasons. Well the bible says these people have only borrowed the name and that is at a price. The facts always bear out, if people investigated they would figure that out. The truth always bears investigation by definition and the facts will always hold up. That is, that Jesus Christ is the living God and will heal you.

>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Is there a point where you're actually going to contribute something to the conversation, or are you just going to stay in the peanut gallery and snipe at me?
No one is out. Just because different Christians believe different things doesn't make them unchristian. Misled, perhaps, but anyone who believes on Christ is saved. Personally, I am non-denominational.
How is the book of John ruled out? What on earth are you talking about? The passages referring to what people call the rapture could be interperted a few different ways..I accept them, I just read them differently.
Look, it's clear you don't know anything about scripture. Why don't you do some research before you toss around these ignorant statements.
>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. No, I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.
>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?


ok.
so the pentacostals are out /scratches them off the list.
as is the book of john../more scratching.
any other books i should dismiss?


i am just following the conversation brother.
listening to your witness and taking notes.
so dont dismiss the books but allow for interpretation../check.
read more scripture../check
let me ask you a question.
since you feel im "sniping" from the peanut gallery.( i was being a snark..but snipe is nicer)
if you do not believe in the rapture and find it non-doctrinal,would you consider yourself to be a preterist?
do you consider yourself from ecclestiassitcal,calvinism or maybe even of a arminianism theosophical school of thought?
and if ecclestiassical..how have you resolved the issue of the nicean creed?
another i am curious as to how you may have resolved is zoroastrianism.
how have you been able to separate the seemingly identical stories from both the bible and this pre-christian religion?
i mean one could come to the conclusion that monotheism was actually born from this religion which was influential in judaism and christianity.
reading zarathustra's sermons one may find some close similarities to many of the earliest books of the bible.
or the story of gilgamesh and its seemingly identical recitation of noah,even though gilgamesh was centuries before noah.
how did you rationalize that particular conundrum?
one last question.
since you are christian,as am i,i am extremely curious how you were able to resolve the issue of the resurrection deities:
krishna,osiris,dionysus,mithra.
all were have purported to be the son of god.
to have began their ministry at an early age.
performed miracles.
persecuted and then executed.
dead for three days.
and on the third day were all resurrected.
what about the female resurrection deities?
ishtar and persephone?
they have similar stories too!
i am curious how you dealt with these particular theological dilemmas.

And well I used to steady these things quite deeply..I investigated all of the resurrection accounts..it was surprising how far away it was from factual..none of it held up..i never investigated gilgamesh, but ive heard of it...zorotorism for example.. thats easy, it is a blatant copy of judiasm, mixed in with a reading of the messiah prophecies. there are critical differences however. they say the spirit of God is bad and good and He is only good. They worship the creation rather than the one who created it. there is no atonement, and salvation is by works. it is just like any other pagan religion, but with an idea of good and evil gained from judiasm and the prophecies of the messiah. zorro is a crude copy of christ, not the other way around as it turns out. Remember Satan is the accuser ie the prosecuting attorney. He understands the law down to the letter, he understood a messiah was to come..he always knows his rights.. >> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
Is there a point where you're actually going to contribute something to the conversation, or are you just going to stay in the peanut gallery and snipe at me?
No one is out. Just because different Christians believe different things doesn't make them unchristian. Misled, perhaps, but anyone who believes on Christ is saved. Personally, I am non-denominational.
How is the book of John ruled out? What on earth are you talking about? The passages referring to what people call the rapture could be interperted a few different ways..I accept them, I just read them differently.
Look, it's clear you don't know anything about scripture. Why don't you do some research before you toss around these ignorant statements.
>> ^enoch:
>> ^shinyblurry:
No, I don't believe in the rapture..I don't think it is biblical. I know a lot of Christians hope for that but I think it's a false doctrine. No, I don't believe in the May 21st 2011 date either..for two reasons. One is that scripture clearly states that no one knows the hour. That alone makes anyone setting a date automatically wrong. The other is that the person who made this prediction had made another prediction that the world would end in 1994. Obviously it didn't happen so that means that he is a false prophet. If a prophet makes a prediction and even one letter of it doesn't come true it means he is not a real prophet.
>> ^shuac:
While I certainly do not wish to add more stress to shiny by adding more questions to his docket...but ultimately, I cannot resist. And anyway, they're easy yes/no questions...
1) Do you believe in the rapture?
2) Do you believe that it will happen on May 21, 2011 as many theists predict?


ok.
so the pentacostals are out /scratches them off the list.
as is the book of john../more scratching.
any other books i should dismiss?


i am just following the conversation brother.
listening to your witness and taking notes.
so dont dismiss the books but allow for interpretation../check.
read more scripture../check
let me ask you a question.
since you feel im "sniping" from the peanut gallery.( i was being a snark..but snipe is nicer)
if you do not believe in the rapture and find it non-doctrinal,would you consider yourself to be a preterist?
do you consider yourself from ecclestiassitcal,calvinism or maybe even of a arminianism theosophical school of thought?
and if ecclestiassical..how have you resolved the issue of the nicean creed?
another i am curious as to how you may have resolved is zoroastrianism.
how have you been able to separate the seemingly identical stories from both the bible and this pre-christian religion?
i mean one could come to the conclusion that monotheism was actually born from this religion which was influential in judaism and christianity.
reading zarathustra's sermons one may find some close similarities to many of the earliest books of the bible.
or the story of gilgamesh and its seemingly identical recitation of noah,even though gilgamesh was centuries before noah.
how did you rationalize that particular conundrum?
one last question.
since you are christian,as am i,i am extremely curious how you were able to resolve the issue of the resurrection deities:
krishna,osiris,dionysus,mithra.
all were have purported to be the son of god.
to have began their ministry at an early age.
performed miracles.
persecuted and then executed.
dead for three days.
and on the third day were all resurrected.
what about the female resurrection deities?
ishtar and persephone?
they have similar stories too!
i am curious how you dealt with these particular theological dilemmas.

so satan did it.
thats your answer.
would it make a difference if i pointed out that zoroastrianism is pre-judaism?
and therefore could NEVER be a carbon copy since it predates judaism.
you never qualified if you were a preterist nor which theologogical school of thought you subscribed to.
my guess is that you read the KJV and are evidently evangelical.
based on just those factors i would guess calvinism.(see? i even answered one for you bud).

well,
i have to say that was a very unsatisfying answer.
but i do thank you for your prompt reply.

Allow me to correct you sir..http://www.conservapedia.com/Talk:Zoroastrianism

>> ^enoch:
so satan did it.
thats your answer.
would it make a difference if i pointed out that zoroastrianism is pre-judaism?
and therefore could NEVER be a carbon copy since it predates judaism.
you never qualified if you were a preterist nor which theologogical school of thought you subscribed to.
my guess is that you read the KJV and are evidently evangelical.
based on just those factors i would guess calvinism.(see? i even answered one for you bud).
well,
i have to say that was a very unsatisfying answer.
but i do thank you for your prompt reply.

/facepalm
ok..fine.sighs.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/index.htm
conservapedia is a known unreliable source.
and you still didnt answer my other queries.
you really should take a look at my profile blurry.
namaste.



>> ^shinyblurry:

Allow me to correct you sir..http://www.conservapedia.com/Talk:Zoroastrianism
>> ^enoch:
so satan did it.
thats your answer.
would it make a difference if i pointed out that zoroastrianism is pre-judaism?
and therefore could NEVER be a carbon copy since it predates judaism.
you never qualified if you were a preterist nor which theologogical school of thought you subscribed to.
my guess is that you read the KJV and are evidently evangelical.
based on just those factors i would guess calvinism.(see? i even answered one for you bud).
well,
i have to say that was a very unsatisfying answer.
but i do thank you for your prompt reply.

The only question is "Is Jesus Christ who He said He is?" Is He risen? This is personally verifiable by every man women and child on the face of the planet. So even if zoroastrianism was older, which I don't believe it is, it is a dead religion which offers nothing ultimately. If you put it to the test it will fail, but Jesus will pass the test...He already did for you..
>> ^enoch:
so satan did it.
thats your answer.
would it make a difference if i pointed out that zoroastrianism is pre-judaism?
and therefore could NEVER be a carbon copy since it predates judaism.
you never qualified if you were a preterist nor which theologogical school of thought you subscribed to.
my guess is that you read the KJV and are evidently evangelical.
based on just those factors i would guess calvinism.(see? i even answered one for you bud).
well,
i have to say that was a very unsatisfying answer.
but i do thank you for your prompt reply.

Shiny quoted conserva-facts-don't-affect-me-pedia.com; conversation ended. You fail.

http://www.greatcom.org/resources/handbook_of_todays_religions/03chap07/default.htm

>> ^enoch:
/facepalm
ok..fine.sighs.
http://www.sacred-texts.com/zor/index.htm
conservapedia is a known unreliable source.
and you still didnt answer my other queries.
you really should take a look at my profile blurry.
namaste.
>> ^shinyblurry:
Allow me to correct you sir..http://www.conservapedia.com/Talk:Zoroastrianism
>> ^enoch:
so satan did it.
thats your answer.
would it make a difference if i pointed out that zoroastrianism is pre-judaism?
and therefore could NEVER be a carbon copy since it predates judaism.
you never qualified if you were a preterist nor which theologogical school of thought you subscribed to.
my guess is that you read the KJV and are evidently evangelical.
based on just those factors i would guess calvinism.(see? i even answered one for you bud).
well,
i have to say that was a very unsatisfying answer.
but i do thank you for your prompt reply.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORtusl7P_0E

>> ^shinyblurry:
The only question is "Is Jesus Christ who He said He is?" Is He risen? This is personally verifiable by every man women and child on the face of the planet. So even if zoroastrianism was older, which I don't believe it is, it is a dead religion which offers nothing ultimately. If you put it to the test it will fail, but Jesus will pass the test...He already did for you..
>> ^enoch:
so satan did it.
thats your answer.
would it make a difference if i pointed out that zoroastrianism is pre-judaism?
and therefore could NEVER be a carbon copy since it predates judaism.
you never qualified if you were a preterist nor which theologogical school of thought you subscribed to.
my guess is that you read the KJV and are evidently evangelical.
based on just those factors i would guess calvinism.(see? i even answered one for you bud).
well,
i have to say that was a very unsatisfying answer.
but i do thank you for your prompt reply.

a whole page concerning zarathustra?
didnt you already answer this question?
and how does this page you link conflict with zoroastrian influence in the bible?
it confirms the influence on early biblical scribes.
/confused
and i notice still no answer on my other queries.
if you are unable to i understand.
again.i thank you for your prompt reply.

Speaking of your profile, @enoch, I'm guessing you're the one who moon-walked with God, Methuselah's dad? According to shiny's creed, your genes are in every single one of us... hope you're proud!

@enoch (damn quote thing is buggin out on me)

"krishna,osiris,dionysus,mithra.
all were have purported to be the son of god.
to have began their ministry at an early age.
performed miracles.
persecuted and then executed.
dead for three days.
and on the third day were all resurrected."

wrong, wrong, and wrong. More fact checking/research, less Zeitgeist (unbelievably inaccurate "documentary" btw)

sorry to butt in, was just reading through and saw that......couldnt let that one slide =P

got drill in a few, i'll contribute to this convo when i get home this evening

http://conspiracies.skepticproject.com/articles/zeitgeist/part-one/

a pretty thorough dismantling of zeitgeist. Theres quite a few out there on the internets but this one is the most thorough (that ive come across anyway)

hey look..you are poorly informed here..you said my response was very unsatisfying and also inaccurate to boot? you stated that zoroasterism is older than judiasm as if it were an undisputed fact; well sorry but that is not the prevailing viewpoint. there is a lot of misinformation out there on this subject. if you just want to look at the merits of the case the Zoroaster belief is primitive by comparison, if one could be identified as a crude copy, that would be it.

The Christ Conspiracy is the main source of information in Zeitgeist].
http://www.answeringinfidels.com/answering-skeptics/answering-acharya-s/a-refutation-of-archary-ss-book-the-christ-conspiracy-pt-1.html

Was the New Testament Influenced by Pagan Religions
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/2007/12/zeitgeist-of-zeitgeist-movie.html

The Death of the Mystery Gods and the Death of Jesus

The best way to evaluate the alleged dependence of early Christian beliefs about Christ's death and resurrection on the pagan myths of a dying and rising savior-god is to examine carefully the supposed parallels. The death of Jesus differs from the deaths of the pagan gods in at least six ways:

(1) None of the so-called savior-gods died for someone else. The notion of the Son of God dying in place of His creatures is unique to Christianity.[13]

(2) Only Jesus died for sin. As Gunter Wagner observes, to none of the pagan gods "has the intention of helping men been attributed. The sort of death that they died is quite different (hunting accident, self-emasculation, etc.)."[14]

(3) Jesus died once and for all (Heb. 7:27; 9:25-28; 10:10-14). In contrast, the mystery gods were vegetation deities whose repeated deaths and resuscitations depict the annual cycle of nature.

(4) Jesus' death was an actual event in history. The death of the mystery god appears in a mythical drama with no historical ties; its continued rehearsal celebrates the recurring death and rebirth of nature. The incontestable fact that the early church believed that its proclamation of Jesus' death and resurrection was grounded in an actual historical event makes absurd any attempt to derive this belief from the mythical, nonhistorical stories of the pagan cults.[15]

(5) Unlike the mystery gods, Jesus died voluntarily. Nothing like this appears even implicitly in the mysteries.

(6) And finally, Jesus' death was not a defeat but a triumph. Christianity stands entirely apart from the pagan mysteries in that its report of Jesus' death is a message of triumph. Even as Jesus was experiencing the pain and humiliation of the cross, He was the victor. The New Testament's mood of exultation contrasts sharply with that of the mystery religions, whose followers wept and mourned for the terrible fate that overtook their gods.[16]


>> ^enoch:
a whole page concerning zarathustra?
didnt you already answer this question?
and how does this page you link conflict with zoroastrian influence in the bible?
it confirms the influence on early biblical scribes.
/confused
and i notice still no answer on my other queries.
if you are unable to i understand.
again.i thank you for your prompt reply.

sighs..
/doublefacepalm
this is becoming....tiresome.
i came to the decision to stop being a snark towards shinyblurry because his tone had softened a bit and he appeared more willing to interact in a more human and engaging way.
since he stated he had been studying for years (specifically what he never states) i put forth a few questions.
i put a lot of thought in to those questions.
not to be an ass,or pull a gotcha nor even to be "right" but rather to hear his response.
the questions were really not that important but his answers would reveal much on how he viewed certain dilemmas facing todays evangelical christian.
and since he says he has studied for years i framed the questions with tidbits and items a first year seminarian would know and would have already dealt with.
i now suspect that when shinyblurry says he "has studied for years" he means personal study.
nothing wrong with that.
thats how i did it too for many years and then was blessed to meet one of the most amazing people who decided to mentor and teach me..dr paul.

@smooman
you totally missed the point of my post.
i was not attempting to prove the existence of these resurrection deities and by proxy disprove jesus.nor did i gank that from zeitgeist..so lets not get derailed.
the question was how does shinyblurry resolve this issue?
his answer was "satan did it".
now that answer from an evangelical perspective is expected but from an intellectual one it is weak.
i am NOT being an ass here,just pointing out what should be obvious.
"satan did it" is a cheap and lazy way out.

@shinyblurry
the questions i asked were conundrums.
you have to think your way through them...not dismiss out of hand.
you have focused on zoraorastrian.
posted links to pages.
may i just say up front that i am not interested in someones elses research nor their conclusions but rather very interested in yours.
my point bringing up zoraorastrian was to illuminate the fact that the bible has been influenced by MANY different and sometimes conflicting theologies,and written by many different authors.
thats why i mentioned gilgamesh.
does the fact that so many authored the bible take away from the its beauty?literature? wisdom?
not at all,but it does paint a picture that is far more human and i was curious how you resolved that issue being an evangelical.
you did answer.."satan"..(i really find that answer unsatisfactory btw)...but you did not say how you resolved that issue.unless "satan" is your true answer and in that case.ok..fair enough.

you never answered which school of theological thought you adhered to (you made me guess).
nor did you answer if you were a preterist.
which is just somebody who believes that messianic prophecy has already been fulfilled.(you wont find any these days.2000 yrs ago you would have though).
this question was in relation to how christianity has evolved over the centuries.
now my question concerning the nicean creed is actually a trick question because it has never been resolved.
325 a.d and the nicean creed was the third attempt and the council decided to stick with it but it never really resolves the trinity.because of this theological failure of the elder council millions over the years have perished and not a small reason chirtianity began to fracture in to smaller subsets...all gaining (and losing ) and gaining again prominence in the christian world.

the questions i asked would reveal if shinyblurry has limited his studies to the 66 books of the KJV or if he has expanded his studies.
again..not for a gotcha moment nor to belittle him, but rather so i would have an idea the parameters in our discussion.

i read the gospels far different than mainstream christianity.
i study origins.
i study the socio-economic and education of that period of time.
the cultural practices and institutions.
when you put all these factors together you gain a much more insightful and complete picture.
i guess i dont understand when someone ignores that very vital part of the equation.
hence my questions.
i wanted to know how shinyblurry dealt with these dilemmas or if he thought of them at all.

living in the bible belt i deal with evangelicals all the time.
in fact i spoke at a local baptist church a few weeks ago.
my sermon was "the mechanics of prayer".they were welcoming and responsive,conversely i have also been told by another group of evangelicals that i will burn in the pit of fire because my idea and understanding of scripture happened to be different from theirs.

i do not understand how some people conflate their religion as themselves.
as somehow they ARE their religion and if their religion comes under any criticism or scrutiny they react like it is THEY who are being personally attacked and lash out with violent intentions (disguised as righteousness).
religion is a system of doctrine and dogma with written scripture as a vehicle.
since scripture is the written word, it is tangible and therefore subject to scrutiny and/or criticism.
and thats how it SHOULD be.i do not know ONE theologian who would disagree with that statement but i have encountered hundreds who feel that ANY scrutiny of their holy text is tantamount to a personal attack upon them.

i was unsure if blurry was a troll or if he was even aware that he was coming across like one.
i am still not sure.
i was ok with making snarky remarks and match blurry tone for tone.until i realized i was behaving poorly and nothing positive would really come out of that form of interaction...maybe amusement for a time.
so i decided to take a different approach and all i got was more of the same.
sad..really.
what a wasted opportunity.
my expectations for this discussion have dwindled considerably.
religion is communal..
faith is personal.
i guess mine is so far removed from shinyblurry's that we are incapable of having a decent discussion with each other.

so there it is folks.as openly and as honestly as i am able.
with sincerity and humility i say this to you shinyblurry.
namaste.

@shinyblurry
i just read your recent post.
well thought out and i agree with the points pertaining to the differences between jesus and the other myriad of resurrection deities.

i dont know why that post didnt appear when i first came to this thread.
maybe it was during the time of me writing my previous post.please forgive.
that was very well done.
that is precisely the difference and also how i too..resolved that issue.
i thank you for your answer.

Okay forgiven but what I am getting at is what Paul preached. Which is saved in Christ and Christ resurrected..I don't know what socio-economic conditions have to do with being saved but i have done my research. I used to live with a pagan so I was exposed to the occult and pagan religions. I also had a background in the abrahamic religions, hinduism as well as buddhism, zen buddhism, kundalini yoga, i mean really esoteric stuff..babylonian, enki and enlil kind of stuff..and also i was around people who welcomed evil spirits in their lives..and they would meet these spirits in the astral plane by engaging in astral travel..i knew someone who could do it at will..its all very interesting seeming but it is straight from hell..it's all for evil, this is how people get misled in the pagan world, some spirit makes them think they are spiritually powerful so they become arrogant and think they are above God. Which is what the devil thinks, coincidently. God has never disappointed me or let me down..I trust in Him and His holy name. That's my point. I don't know how you could really define my views..according to my experience I was elected by God..God is entirely real to me, if I said He wasn't I would be a liar. So I witness to that and to the gospel as the word of the living God. What would you call that? And no I am not a pretriest..Christ has yet to come again..

>> ^enoch:
@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry
i just read your recent post.
well thought out and i agree with the points pertaining to the differences between jesus and the other myriad of resurrection deities.
i dont know why that post didnt appear when i first came to this thread.
maybe it was during the time of me writing my previous post.please forgive.
that was very well done.
that is precisely the difference and also how i too..resolved that issue.
i thank you for your answer.

@shiny: So Jesus Christ is the only one to have allegedly died, nay, sacrificed himself, for others? Wow, that makes him soooo much better, and Christianity the pinnacle of morality!
/sarcasm

Watch and learn:

It wasn't immoral, it redeemed creation, his argument shows no understanding of divine providence. chris chooses to espouse this simplistic viewpoint based on a shallow understanding of His life and work...in no way was it immoral, not under any definition. Jesus said this, that the greatest love is that of someone willing to lay down their life for their friends. Jesus did that because He loves us all, to him we're all his friends. chris's argument is missing the point entirely. We can't get there on our own. There is no on righteous, not one;. Chris is a sinner, and he doesn't want to join God in paradise, he would rather be seperated from God forever..so when God gives him what he wanted you say its immoral. make up your mind

>> ^hpqp:
@shiny: So Jesus Christ is the only one to have allegedly died, nay, sacrificed himself, for others? Wow, that makes him soooo much better, and Christianity the pinnacle of morality!
/sarcasm
Watch and learn:

sorry, i may have read that out of context. i saw it as asking how one would resolve the issue of the resurrection deities and their similarities to Jesus, and gave my solution: which is to say theres nothing to resolve really as the "similarities" are made up at best and just wild distortions at worst. I could only presume you borrowed them from zeitgeist seeing as that is the exact premise of part i. in any event ........um......your face =P

really enjoying the dialogue here tho (a discussion such as this is not really something you could settle in a minute or two, so keep it coming. i'll try to keep my posts relevant =)

^ I get it now!

It's not immoral because it isn't. But what if it is? This tidbit here seems pretty damn immoral. Nope! Can't be, cause it isn't.

I didn't understand before, but now I get it. Makes perfect sense to me. Now please excuse me while I go cut out the half of my brain that I clearly don't need anymore.

Most of what he is saying is pure hyperbole, but I'll address some of his points, though. First, Jesus willingly sacrificed Himself on the cross, it wasn't something He was forced to do. He wasn't a victum. It's what He wanted to do, out of love for His Father and for us. It was His sacrifice, and a noble one too;. He shed His innocent blood so that every human being had the way to eternal life. It absolutely does not take away personal responsibility...it's really quite the opposite; you are more responsible for your actions when you are saved. Anyone who is saved is held to a much higher standard of conduct, ie, perfection.

Chris is right, he couldn't forgive you, coiuldn't absolve you, not just because he is an imperfect human being, but because only God can forgive sins. A sin is breaking Gods law, and a human couldn't absolve you of that. Chris complained that he wasn't consulted about the cross it but Salvation is a free gift he is free to accept or reject. What Jesus did was not contingent upon human approval. It's up to him how to respond. It's similar to his noion of compulsary love. He said himself he would only be willing to make a real sacrifice for you only if you had been really nice to him, otherwise forget it. Clearly he doesn't believe everyone is worthy of that sacrifice, or that kind of love. Yet, that's the difference between Gods morality and chris's morality. Chris is a flawed human being whose basic interests are selfish, by his own admission. God is Holy, and He loves everyone, saved and sinner alike. Chris doesn't think you should love everyone, or that there are degrees of love based on what someone does for you, how nice they've been to you. God doesn't make that distinction..He loves someone even if they have done evil to Him. He teaches us to do this, to our spiritual perfection. Yet none of this is compulsary to Chris. He clearly has been free to hate God most of his life. Yet none of this will absolve him of his personal responsibility to obey Gods law. He wants to prove God is immoral, but really it is Chris who is immoral for disobeying God in the first place, and Christ who is attempting to circumvent his personal responsibility for his actions by attempting to put the burden of his guilt on God.

>> ^hpqp:


I was going to suggest reading Byron's "Cain: A Mystery", which develops the immorality of original sin in a much more sophisticated and poetic fashion, but seeing that you did not even get the point of the nonstampcollector video I linked (if you even watched it), Byron would be way over your head.

You say: "God let them know it was wrong to disobey Him by outlining the consequences if they did."
Have you even read the Bible? God is the one who lies, saying "in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen.2:7); the serpent, OTOH, tells the truth (Gen. 3:4-7, italics mine):
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, [...]
It is the lack of knowledge that makes the fabled first humans inferior to (and dependant upon) their father-figure creator. Religion relies on ignorance, obedience and blind faith in authority, i.e. everything that demarcates a dependent infant from an independent adult.



I know I shouldn't feed the troll, but I forgot to add this biblical tidbit to my argument (Gen. 3:22-3, italics mine):

22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.


Not only does everything the serpent says come to pass, it is even validated by God Himself.

Before you go all copy-pasty-preachy on me shiny, remember that we're talking about a fable with a frikkin' talking snake!

I know you enjoy heaping disrespect upon me, but I think it should be fairly obvious that I am not a troll. If you really believed that, why would you be having an extended theological debate with me? Makes you rather foolish, don't you think?

Onto your question, which has me in disbelief that you don't understand..

Like every lie satan tells, it has a half truth to lure the gullible..yes the knowledge of good and evil made them like God in that respect. It also ultimately killed them; satan said it wouldn't happen. He lied. Why is this so difficult for you to comprehend?

>> ^shinyblurry:

3. What was your question?
Btw, I don't delve into apologetics. Not knowing anything about apologetics, I can see why you've made this mistake. This is entirely from my own understanding.


You can quote the Bible all you want and tell us how you understand it, but without apologetics I'm afraid you've lost this crowd.

so what? I have experiences like this at least once a month

this man was generally pretty content with his life. now he found something else to live for and it's making him supremely happy. why are we still talking about this? religion enriches my life, and atheism may enrich other people's. what's the problem?

For what it's worth, this post has 200+ comments. That in itself is quite a feat.

>> ^shinyblurry:

It wasn't immoral, it redeemed creation, his argument shows no understanding of divine providence. chris chooses to espouse this simplistic viewpoint based on a shallow understanding of His life and work...in no way was it immoral, not under any definition. Jesus said this, that the greatest love is that of someone willing to lay down their life for their friends. Jesus did that because He loves us all, to him we're all his friends. chris's argument is missing the point entirely. We can't get there on our own. There is no on righteous, not one;. Chris is a sinner, and he doesn't want to join God in paradise, he would rather be seperated from God forever..so when God gives him what he wanted you say its immoral. make up your mind
>> ^hpqp:
@shiny: So Jesus Christ is the only one to have allegedly died, nay, sacrificed himself, for others? Wow, that makes him soooo much better, and Christianity the pinnacle of morality!
/sarcasm
Watch and learn:




Jesus is just another avatar for God. How can an omnipotent, omniscient being who CREATED THE ENTIRE FRICKING UNIVERSE possibly be sacrificing ANYTHING or teaching some valuable lesson about living morally by killing a mere material manifestation of himself? It'd be like an adult person impressing an infant by doing the "Gotcher nose!" trick and then expecting, no, DEMANDING the child to be just as sycophantically impressed when he becomes an independent, free-thinking adult.

And why the FUCK would he decide to do this only after humanity has ALREADY had an incredibly harsh, scrounging, feral existence (while he sat on his ethereal ass, no less, watching his beloved creation unfold) composed of much abject suffering, hunger, and violence for the roughly 400,000 years of human development prior? Did an omnipotent god have a momentary (from his perspective, of course!) loss of control? What the fuck kind of interventionist God is he to chose THAT time specifically? Came down with a case of Mondays, maybe? Or did he just not care and decide to mix things up out of boredom? What a narcissistic, manipulative, cynical, uncaring, and abusive asshole your god is if your doctrine is to be believed.

You do not need a god, specifically the Christian god in your case, to be moral. Our continued existence and success as a social species has borne this out. We continue to progress in spite of the hamstringing influence of these unimaginative, sadomasochistic ideas, not because of them. Ideas of flawed and all-too-obviously human minds; superstition and utterly incomprehensible and self-contradictory religion. No divine being had ANY hand in that jumbled mess of a book you revere much. No self-respecting divine being would. Us humans, on the other hand...

@AnimalsForCrackers

Jesus wasn't an avatar, or a "manifestation". He is Gods Son, and God Himself. He is a divine person. He lived as a human being for 33 years, as one of us. He didn't die to teach us about morality, He died to save us from our own lack of it.

According to the bible, God has been active in creation since He created Adam and Eve. At no point did He just sit back and do nothing.

God gave you a conscience, that's how you know right from wrong. You think you can do without God, but you'll still have to answer to him.

Jesus was an alien. Period.

^I don't know, I quite like the zombie theory, at least there is textual precedents (Matthew 27:51-53).

Though some scientists suggest he was a mix of several types of undead...

For more information, check this encyclopaedic article (as scientifically accurate as Conservapedia, but funnier).

>> ^shinyblurry:

<em>>> <a rel="nofollow" href='http://videosift.com/video/God-does-exist-Testimony-from-an-ex-atheist?loadcomm=1#comment-1200441'>^criticalthud</a>:<br />@<A rel="nofollow" class=profilelink title="member since January 21st, 2011" href="http://videosift.com/member/shinyblurry">shinyblurry</A><BR>probability, and a study of history indicates that it is much more likely that we create gods in our image, rather than gods creating us in theirs. The is natural result of an egocentric species, which creates projections of the self and imbues those projections with it's own valued qualities. Notice how, throughout history, our gods mirror ourselves, even changing in quality as society dictates.<BR>Or we can go with the notion that we "know" the all-powerful and omnipitent...which is a mastabatory exercise in extreme arrogance.<BR>my friend, there is a rather important disconnect between those who profess to "know" and those that profess to have no knowledge about what cannot be known. Atheism is not a belief that you are wrong and that your holy book is trash, it is instead a lack of belief, or lack of certainty in what is unknown and cannot be experienced except through death. <BR>i was raised catholic. leaving was not a choice in what i believed, it was an acceptance of the unknown.<BR></em>
Actually, atheism is the belief that God doesn't exist. Look it up in a dictionary sometime. A lack of belief, ie, you don't know, would be agnosticism. An atheist is saying he does know there isn't a God, which is a leap of faith, considering there is no evidence to the contrary.
Personally, I think it takes more faith to be an atheist. If you ever feel like challenging your beliefs, which is what anyone who is seeking the truth should do, check out:
<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615">http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615</a&
gt;


No no no. a lack of belief is not a denial. there is a HUGE difference. "Theism" is a belief in a god or gods. "A" theism is the absence of belief. Get it right.